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THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 
IN THE SECONDARY SCHOOL 


THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS 
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 


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THE BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY 
NEW YORK 


THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA, LIMITED 
TORONTO 


THE CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
LONDON 


THE MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA 
TOKYO, OSAKA, KYOTO, FUKUOKA, SENDAI 


THE COMMERCIAL PRESS, LIMITED 
SHANGHAI 


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PRACTICE OF TEACHING © 
IN THE 


SECONDARY SCHOOL 


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By - 
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HENRY C. MORRISON 


Professor of Education in the 
University of Chicago 


JAN 22 1929 


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THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS 
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 


CopyRIGHT 1926 By 
Tue UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 


All Rights Reserved 


Published February 1926 
Second Impression May 1926 
Third Impression September 1926 
Fourth Impression March 1927 


Composed and Printed By 
The University of Chicago Press 
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. 


PREFACE 


N undertaking the preparation of this volume I have been 
i actuated by a conviction, born of many years’ devotion to 
teaching and to the supervision of educational enterprises, 
that genuinely effective education, whether it be for the service 
of the individual or the service of society, must be founded upon 
a coherent theory of the whole field of teaching, capable of being 
organized into a practicable system; and further that such a sys- 
tem must be one which at least makes possible much more thor- 
ough and genuine learning by all than any which we have usual- 
ly been able to secure. The book is therefore not at all an exhibit 
of method—although it brings together a great many phases of 
method which seem to have adequate foundation in fact and in 
principle—but rather an analysis of teaching procedure in that 
field of non-specialized education which begins with the end of 
the primary school and is brought to a close when the youth is 
ready to enter the university proper. 

It is hoped that all teachers who work in the field which has 
just been named and who conceive teaching itself to be an exact- 
ing intellectual enterprise, quite apart from the materials of in- 
struction, will find the book a useful guide in their methods of 
pedagogical thinking. Nevertheless, the message is addressed 
first of all to students of the general educative process and espe- 
cially to the executive and staff officers of schools who realize 
that teaching is by far the most important activity which they 
have to administer. 

The volume is the product of a study of teaching as it is 
found in schools and in undergraduate colleges, and of the lit- 
erature bearing upon the subject, extending over a period of 
about twenty-five years. The study has been largely experimen- 
tal: first, in the schools of a New England city; then at different 
points under differing conditions and in varying fragmentary 
forms in a state system of public schools; and finally, much 


Vv 


vi PREFACE 


more systematically, for six years in the Laboratory Schools of 
the University of Chicago. 

If I were to mention all who have borne helpful and indeed 
essential parts in a great variety of ways in the carrying out of 
the whole undertaking, several pages would be required for the 
mere lists of names. There would be included the teachers who 
worked with me so long ago in Portsmouth in finding new ways 
to teach; scores of teachers and supervisory officers in New 
Hampshire; hundreds of my university students whose alert 
criticism, significant queries, and contributions in the form of 
graduate papers have been an important influence in giving the 
work its final shape; and finally, the Faculties of the Laboratory 
Schools. | | 

I am under special obligation to the following colleagues: 

1. To Mr. Robert Woellner and Dr. Peter Hagboldt, who 
read critically the manuscript chapters on the “Practical Arts” 
and “‘Foreign Languages,” respectively. 

2. To Mr. Wilbur L. Beauchamp and Miss Edith Shepherd, 
who submitted some of the more doubtful points to specific ex- 
perimental verification. 

3. Tomy associates in the administration of the Laboratory 
Schools, Dr. William C. Reavis and Mr. Harry O. Gillet, with- 
out whose loyalty, practical educational insight, and administra- 
tive acumen the laboratory stages would have been impossible. 

4. To Professor Charles H. Judd, who read all of Part I in 
manuscript, and whose trenchant criticisms and generous per- 
sonal advice have been essential in giving direction to the whole 
enterprise. 

5. To President Emeritus Harry Pratt Judson, whose com- 
prehensive grasp of the foundations of American educational in- 
stitutions not only made the later stages of experimentation pos- 
sible but was likewise a source of illumination in the develop- 
ment of my theory of institutional organization. 

Henry C. Morrison 


UNIVERSITY oF CHICAGO 
February, 1926 


TABLE OF CONTENTS 
PART I. FUNDAMENTALS IN THE TEACHING 


PROCESS 
CHAPTER PAGE 
Te UE SECONDARY SCHOO). Ua me uly Bil he nel ML FE 
II. THe OBJECTIVES OF SYSTEMATIC TEACHING . . . 18 
II. Learnmc AND LESSON PERFORMANCE. 2. Aes 
IV. THE Propucr or Lesson-LEARNING . . . . . 49 
Ve grRRatsaT OR PUP PhoGresge 7) 0000) 20 ikl 6 66 
VI. OUTLINES OF AN APPROPRIATE TECHNIQUE . . . 79 


PART Il. CONTROL TECHNIQUE 


VII. ESTABLISHING THE LEARNING SITUATION . . . . 103 
Vill sMrasprinc GROUP CONTROL) NOU Oe Bes 
LES USTAINED APPLICATION iA. kN MUN Nil Ege 


PART II. OPERATIVE TECHNIQUE 


X. INTRODUCTION TO OPERATIVE TECHNIQUE. . . . 153 

XI. Tue Unrr mn Puysican anp Soctan SCIENCE... 171 

ae oe) Hist ks MEEeRNV CLES LORS viii ts Hts Wie My kg ie Loe 
XII. Toe Unit In MATHEMATICS AND GRAMMAR... .gsOIQQ 
POV eee LMACHINGQOVORE Sth GUT is ep: 220 
XV. EXPLORATION AND PRESENTATION’. . 1 1 ss) 232 
Py ere SIMLLATIONG AC ese Mian Nay chee lle tile’ elie a Hae 
XVI. ORGANIZATION AND RECITATION . . « s +s (300 
Peery LL aE APPRECTATIONVLYPE) 0.4) nce) a ee! eI QT 


vii 


CEAPTER 


XXVIII. 
XXIX. 
XXX. 
XXXII. 
XXXIT. 
INDEX . 


TABLE OF CONTENTS 


. TECHNIQUE IN LITERATURE—FREE READING . 
. CouRSES IN LITERATURE 

. Rrcut ATTITUDE TOWARD CONDUCT 

. THE PRACTICAL ARTS IN GENERAL EDUCATION 
. TECHNIQUE IN PRACTICAL ARTS 

. LANGUAGE ARTS 

. TECHNIQUE IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE. 

. TECHNIQUE IN ENGLISH COMPOSITION . 


. PURE-PRACTICE TEACHING 


PART IV. ADMINISTRATIVE TECHNIQUE 


THE INTEGRITY OF THE SCHOOL 
Pupit ADMINISTRATION 

CONTROL OF PUPIL PROGRESS 

THE PROBLEM Pupit—CasE WoRK 


ORGANIZING THE SCHOOL 


PAGE 


335 
352 
oe 
401° 
416 
436 
453 
478 
503 


543 
552 
574 
608 
640 
657 


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FUNDAMENTALS IN THE TEACHING PROCESS 










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CHAPTER I 
THE SECONDARY SCHOOL 


S the title of this volume meets the eye of the reader, 

A ecnntes his first query will be, What is the secondary 

school? And the query will probably in most cases be 

self-answered by the commonly associated term “high school.” 

That is not at all the scope which we are led to assign to the sec- 

ondary school in the treatment of teaching which we propose to 
set forth. 

The differentiation of our educational institutions into ele- 
mentary, secondary, and higher, as we find it made concrete in 
buildings, school organization, administration, and the like, 
arises in part out of a series of historical accidents and in part 
out of administrative convenience and tradition. 

The three schools with which we are familiar have devel- 
oped, not by differentiation from a common institutional origin 
for the better service of a common purpose, but from three dis- 
tinct schools, each of them founded to serve a rather definite 
purpose and each of them in the beginning substantially unre- 
lated to the others. The eight-grade elementary school, as we 
know it, is the indigenous common school, modified by the ef- 
forts of administrators in the second quarter of the nineteenth 
century to adapt the Prussian theory of common-school organi- 
zation and institutional purpose to American needs. The high 
school, which is the most common form of the American secon- 
dary school, comes down to us in direct descent from the acad- 
emies which flourished in the northeastern states throughout the 
first three quarters of the nineteenth century. The oldest of our 
existing institutions is the college which early became essential- 
ly a pre-professional school and in which vocational purposes 
still largely persist. 


4 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


Now each of the original schools had its own purpose and 
its own separate existence. The old common school was not or- 
dinarily set to prepare for the academy or later the free high 
school, nor was it the main business of the early high school or 
academy to prepare for college. Down until nearly the end of 
the nineteenth century, comparatively few pupils passed on 
from the common school to the high school, and cases were rare 
in which graduates of the free public high schools went to col- 
lege. The surpassing educational awakening which began to be 
evident at about 1900 changed all that. Ordinary folks in ever 
increasing numbers began to plan to send their children to col- 
lege. The easy-going ways which had answered for a century 
would no longer serve. The history of educational administra- 
tion since 1890 is to a large extent a story of endless efforts to 
make the elementary school, the high school, and the college pull 
together for a common educational purpose. The record which 
shows how the action of social, economic, educational, and even 
pedagogical forces have been stimulating the process of adapta- 
tion within each of the fundamental institutions and of each to 
the others is an interesting and significant tale. The rise of the 
junior high school, the junior college, the state university, and 
the graduate school of the university are illustrations. 

The persistence of these essentially separate institutions in 
the performance of an educational task which in its nature is 
not discontinuous has generated certain stereotypes in the think- 
ing of both administrators and teachers. An elementary school, 
a high school, and a college were found ready at hand when the 
early students of school organization undertook their task. As 
each new generation of school men came on the ground, it found 
the old distinctions between schools in existence, albeit each 
decade had seen the growth of working agreements touching di- 
vision of labor between the several parts of the system. What 
more natural than to suppose that there must be something in- 
herent in human nature and the educative process which re- 


THE SECONDARY SCHOOL 5 


quires the kind of succession in stages for which the historic 
institutions had come to stand? 

The elementary school, probably by accident of the contact 
of the early administrators with the Prussian system, had come 
to be an institution to which eight years of school life had been 
assigned as the normal allowance. Similarly, the high school and 
college had each required by tradition four years of the stu- 
dent’s life. Hence, the stereotype became firmly established that 
education is primarily a matter of time to be spent, and further 
that an 8-4-4 distribution of years between the institutions is 
the one which is sanctioned by nature. When, in the course of 
time, the process of transition from the elementary school to the 
high school had come to require adjustment, administrators, still 
faithful to their mental stereotype, could think of no other solu- 
tion than the insertion of a new institution expressed in terms of 
years, and so the junior high school came into existence. The 
discussions which then took place almost always centered about 
differences in views as to whether the new system should be a 
6-3-3-4 plan or some other combination of years. Similarly, de- 
bates touching the organization of colleges, graduate schools, 
and professional schools have with few exceptions turned upon 
the question, How many years shall be devoted to this and how 
many to that? Seldom has the test of attainment quite inde- 
pendent of time-to-be-spent been brought into the problem. The 
influence of the stereotype in purely pedagogical administration 
might be traced at great length, and indeed we shall have occa- 
sion to recur frequently to this aspect of the situation. 

The discontinuous character of the fundamental institutions 
of course led to the construction of separate buildings, often re- 
sulting in a great waste of money, and these very tangible and 
concrete evidences of discontinuity have no doubt done much to 
perpetuate the stereotype. To many it is unthinkable that any 
study can properly be done within the four walls of a building 
devoted to elementary-school purposes which tradition has as- 
signed to the high school. To do college work within the high. 


6 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


school building is, in the minds of some people, to make an as- 
sault on the very citadel of culture. Not infrequently, the plea 
for admission to college of a student who is held to be qualified, 
irrespective of the time he has spent in school, is met with the 
verdict, “No, we must stand for a four-year high school founded 
on an eight-year elementary school.” 

Similarly, the stereotype has generated certain fundamental 
assumptions touching the maturity of the individual and theo- 
ries of teaching which have little or no basis in principle. The 
traditional administrative assumption is that a pupil is mature 
enough for high school when he has satisfactorily completed 
eight years of pre-high-school study and mature enough for col- 
lege when he has completed four more years of high school. 
Education being defined as it is, in terms of years of experience 
and successive institutional stages, it is extremely difficult to 
convince the laity that the pupil is not unjustly treated when he 
is required to spend more than one year in a grade. Theories of 
teaching are not unnaturally based upon maturity assumptions. 
Hence it has come to pass that it is often taken for granted that 
the eight-year elementary school calls for one conception of 
teaching, the four-year high school for another, and the college 
for a third. And so books and college courses on teaching are apt 
to bear such titles as Methods of Teaching in the High School, 
The Elementary Teacher, College Teaching. The outcome of 
the whole development of the fundamental institutions, so far as 
it affects—as it does affect—a valid theory of teaching, brings us 
into the heart of our present problem. We must therefore ask 
the reader to consider the limits of the secondary school, in so 
far as they affect the theory of the teaching process and the prac- 
tical outcome thereof in a system of teaching technique, and why 
there is of necessity a period of education which can properly 
and accurately be termed ‘“‘secondary.” 

The problem resolves itself in substance into a search for 
that region in the process of formal education in the schools 
within which there are no essential and critical differences in the 


THE SECONDARY SCHOOL 7 


nature of the process of learning under instruction. Or, to put 
it in another way, we must seek for the region throughout which 
there is some outstanding and controlling characteristic of teach- 
ing which is not found and cannot be applied earlier and which 
is not found, or ought not to be found, later. 

Such a comprehensible test can, we think, be found in the 
school procedure in which the pupil is capable of study but is 
incapable of systematic intellectual growth, except under the 
constant tutorial presence of the teacher. This region is the sec- 
ondary school, at least so far as teaching is concerned. There is 
an earlier period during which the pupil is incapable of study be- 
cause he has not the essential tools, which are ability to read his 
vernacular, ability to use the fundamental concepts of number, 
and ability to use the fundamental system of expression which 
we commonly call “handwriting.” The regions within which he 
is learning the use of these tools and becoming socially adapted 
to group existence under school conditions is the primary school. 
There is a period beyond the secondary school during which the 
student has become capable of pursuing self-dependent study 
and in which he utilizes the instructor in the same sense in which 
he utilizes the library, the laboratory, the occasional public lec- 
turer, the office consultant. This region is the university. It 
matters not for our present purpose whether the student resorts 
to the university for research or for general culture; in either 
case, the region in which he is studying is clearly marked off in 
its essential procedure from the secondary school. If we apply 
this test, which seems incontestably to be a valid one and to be 
fundamental, a college in which it is still necessary for students 
to meet their instructors by regular assignments for purposes of 
instruction and constraint in the arduous pathway of learning is 
still a secondary school. A professional or technical school in 
which this process is still necessary is wholly or in part a school 
at secondary level, earlier or later, depending upon the extent of 
the student’s intellectual capital which is found needful for pur- 
poses of instruction. The mere fact of having completed a given 


8 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


number of years of educational experience cannot in any rational 
sense be taken as defining the pedagogical nature of the school 
in which the student finds himself. The secondary school is thus 
defined in terms of fundamental and characteristic aspects of the 
pupil’s intellectual growth. 

The reader has a right to a more concrete and perhaps fac- 
tual description of the upper and lower limits of the secondary 
school as it has thus been defined. 

Reading in our terms means the ability to see through the 
» symbolic complex of the printed page to the thought or scene or 
action which is the subject of the discourse without constant fo- 
cal consciousness of the discourse itself. To this ability let us 
apply the term reading adaptation. Its essential utility seems 
to be found in the principle that the person who has arrived at 
that stage is able to reflect as he reads and consequently to as- 
similate the subject matter. On the other hand, the person who 
has not reached that stage but who can nevertheless put together 
a mosaic of words, of each of which he is focally conscious, 
cannot reflect as he reads, cannot assimilate as he reads, and 
studies with difficulty if at all. Ability to assimilate material in 
the form of discourse is then one of the primary conditions of 
study. 

Can children study as soon as they have reached the reading 
adaptation? They can and do, in a primitive and unmethodical 
sense it is true, but none the less the fundamental characteristic 
of study is present. They can, by their own efforts, get knowl- 
edge or information from books. Before reaching this stage, 
they could not do so, but must depend upon the teacher or some 
other person for that kind of enlightenment which in our time 
is accessible, either directly or indirectly, on the printed page. 
They could observe, make associations, and to some extent draw 
conclusions, but they could not study in the sense in which that 
term has to be used in the work of the school. This embryonic 
study capacity, which arises as soon as the pupil has found his 
book and can use it, must of course be developed into the sys- 


THE SECONDARY SCHOOL 9 


tematic methods of thinking which the educated man employs; 
it must be trained by developing in the individual volitional 
control and discretion; it must be refined by showing him how 
to attack his problems in the most economical and effective man- 
ner; it must be enriched through the acquisition of intellectual 
content. Such development is the problem of the secondary 
school, from the time at which it receives the pupil until he 
leaves school, or until he is fully equipped with those powers and 
interests which render him educationally self-dependent. 

The pupil begins to be able to learn the systematic forms of 
thinking in which most study is done when he has acquired the 
elementary concepts of number and has become accustomed to 
use them in their mathematical relationships. As soon as he can 
count and, in common parlance, ‘‘put two and two together,” he 
has become capable of learning how to study. Prior to the rise 
of that capacity, even the most elementary truths of nature are 
accessible to him only as information imparted by the teacher or 
discovered through his newly found capacity for reading. Given 
this modicum of arithmetical ability, he is on his way to quan- 
titative thinking. Nor is it essential that he should wait until he 
has acquired the whole range of the curriculum in arithmetic. 
Putting pupils in possession of arithmetic, and mathematics in 
general, is a vital part of the process of teaching pupils to study, 
which is the peculiar province of the secondary school. 

The pupil cannot begin to acquire the art of study, as an 
implement of systematic adjustment to the world and the age in 
which he finds himself, until he has acquired a tool with which to 
record his learning and through which he can express his reac- 
tions to teaching in a more abiding and a more deliberate form 
than is possible through the agency of the spoken voice. The 
only tool which we have yet found usable for this purpose in the 
beginning is handwriting. Apart from the ability which hand- 
writing implies, the individual can absorb information, he can 
make more or less shrewd deduction from his experience, he can 
eventually perhaps accumulate the naive stock of wisdom drawn 


10 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


from the immediate environment, which the illiterate often 
evinces; but he cannot even begin to attack systematically the 
accumulation of ordered experience which an advanced civiliza- 
tion presents to him. Just as reading ability puts the pupil in 
contact with the wider environment, so handwriting enables him 
to react to the environment in intellectual forms and thus to 
complete the learning cycle. Nor is it essential, before he can 
begin to study, that he should have acquired the skill which pen- 
manship implies. It may doubtless become desirable for him to 
improve the quality and rate of his handwriting in order to make 
more effective study possible, and it may later become profitable 
to him to acquire the handwriting skills which a given vocation 
employs. These are functions for which the secondary school 
often finds it necessary to become responsible, but they are not 
critical of the possibility of secondary teaching. As in the case of 
reading, so in that of handwriting, the ability which is critical is 
performance at that stage at which the pupil commits his 
thoughts to paper without focal consciousness of the elements 
of the discourse which he writes. If he can reflect as he writes, 
he can learn to study effectively, other things being equal. Let 
us designate this stage by the term handwriting adaptation. 
When young children enter school, they are commonly at a 
stage of extreme individualism much like that exhibited by sav- 
age peoples. The condition which is normal in the first months 
of school life is an incoherent mass of social atoms, each aggres- 
sive or retiring, depending upon individual attitude and previous 
experience. Modern kindergarten and first-grade teachers seek 
to guide the process of social evolution, which is usually rapid. 
The untrained first-grade teacher is apt to enforce outward har- 
mony by compulsion—with results which later manifest them- 
selves in untoward ways. Now, apart from the necessity of so- 
cialization as one of the fundamental educational products, it is 
to be observed that all the intellectual processes of the school 
have to be carried out under social conditions. Study and teach- 
ing are processes of the social group as it is found in the class- 


THE SECONDARY SCHOOL II 


room. Much of the learning can be accomplished only in the 
mental media which social psychology. describes. Further, it is 
clearly impossible to organize effective study or to make an ef- 
fective presentation, when the teacher’s attention must in the 
main be directed to holding in check a personal feud between 
pupils or to quelling the manifestations of primitive egoism as 
this child or that endeavors to attract attention to himself. The 
older disciplinarians tried it and they usually failed, both edu- 
cationally and pedagogically. Occasionally, a child fails to re- 
spond to the normal socializing process and he later turns up as 
an out-and-out psychiatric case. The attitude in which the pu- 
pil tends habitually to get on with his classmates and to co-oper- 
ate in the intellectual processes of the school is then of sufficient 
importance to be identified as one of the primary criteria of 
ability to study. We may designate it for future reference as the 
primary social adaptation. As in the cases of the other pri- 
mary criteria, the process of socialization has to be carried far- 
ther by the secondary school, both as a product in general edu- 
cation and as a condition precedent to more effective study. 

Now, all of these primary criteria can be identified in indi- 
vidual children by tests, by symptoms, and by resort to other 
evidential means, not it is true with absolute precision but with 
confidence sufficient, in the great majority of cases, to warrant 
placing individual children in the way of that growth which sys- 
tematic study and teaching imply. 

As the pupil grows onward toward mental maturity, he be- 
comes capable of experiences which were before impossible. 
This form of natural individual development is evidently critical 
of what the pupil shall study, but it is not critical of how he shall 
study and be taught, except in details of method and technique. 
The latter is far more a question of intellectual development 
than of mental development, of what the pupil has already ac- 
quired than of how old he is. Doubtless mental, physical, social, 
and intellectual maturity affect details of appropriate operative 
and administrative technique. For instance, intellectual matur- 


12 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


ing eventually brings about a situation in which departmental 
teaching is desirable and feasible, whereas it was not earlier 
feasible. Social, mental, and physical maturity make it desirable 
that pupils of the same general level shall be brought together 
under the same general physical and social conditions. In time, 
it may happen that the first leap into volitional responsibility 
must, in the cases of some individuals, be forced by sending the 
pupil away from the dependent relation imposed by the home. 
The requirements of this kind of flexibility may at times, and in 
the cases of some individuals, make desirable separate institu- 
tions similar to our existing high schools, private academies, and 
colleges, but there is nothing in the teaching process as such 
which calls for such separation. A high school does not become 
peculiarly a secondary institution merely by becoming a sepa- 
rate institution; its pupils have long been in a secondary school 
before they seek its doors. Nor does a college cease to be a 
secondary school merely because it is separately located and 
organized. The individual and his needs, and the requirements 
of the appropriate teaching, constitute the criteria and not insti- 
tutional separability nor experience in terms of years. 

Our inveterate graded-school thinking impels both writer 
and reader to raise the question, With what grade should the 
secondary school begin? The secondary school in the nature of 
things must begin when the individual has attained the tested 
primary adaptations. If a given child has perchance reached 
that level in the third year of school life, his secondary school 
begins then, and if he is delayed, arrested development in the 
form of atrophied intellectual interests is likely to set in. If he 
has reached the end of his primary development by the end of 
the fourth or fifth year, his secondary period begins then. Expe- 
rience seems to suggest that most children under effective pri- 
mary teaching reach the point not far from the age of nine. If 
the pupil has not attained the primary adaptations by the time 
he is academically in high school, he is not yet a student at sec- 
ondary level. There has been accumulated a substantial amount 


THE SECONDARY SCHOOL 13 


of evidence, published and unpublished, which tends to show 
that high schools and even junior colleges have not infrequently 
enrolled students who are in this condition with respect to one or 
more of the four primary adaptations. Some have never learned 
to read; many more have never acquired the number adapta- 
tions; not a few are hopelessly handicapped because they can- 
not work in class groups. For practical administrative purposes, 
in a school system which is large enough to be subdivided at all, 
the kindergarten and the first two, or possibly three, years in 
terms of chronological age should be organized as a single un- 
graded school, not necessarily in a single room, and when a 
group of children have come to the primary adaptations they 
should be sent into the secondary school, not necessarily in an- 
other building. 

The other end of the secondary school is quite as important. 
It is not the twelfth grade nor the sixteenth, but rather the 
point at which the evidence shows clearly that an individual has 
found the sustaining intellectual interests and has attained the 
sense of intellectual responsibility and has acquired the funda- 
mental methods of thinking which make him a self-governing 
intellectual and social unit. If he reaches that point at fifteen 
years of age, he must have his higher opportunity either in his 
present school or another. If denied and kept within the con- 
straining influence of the secondary classroom, he is more than 
likely to become intellectually sterile. If, on the other hand, the 
graduate school finds itself with a student who has never at- 
tained intellectual self-dependence, it must choose between let- 
ting him go and carrying on for his benefit instruction of secon- 
dary grade. The identification of the terminus of secondary edu- 
cation in the individual is a matter of prime importance in the 
administrative technique of the secondary school, and to this 
point we shall have frequent occasion to recur. 

The teaching of the secondary school is the field which this 
volume attempts to analyze. All the chapters which follow are 
based upon the thesis which this introductory chapter has set 


14 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


forth touching the nature of the secondary school itself. It re- 
mains to survey briefly the scope of the teaching process. 

Now teaching is not concerned primarily with guiding and 
controlling the accumulation of knowledge. If it were, there 
would be little occasion for schools beyond the primary. As long 
as the individual could read, he could be guided by means of 
printed matter to books written for very definite purposes, to 
theaters, moving pictures, and the like. In the end, his store of 
knowledge would probably be quite as respectable as is the case 
when he has graduated from high school and college and has ac- 
quired nothing else but a modicum of erudition. 

The teaching process throughout the secondary period is 
concerned with putting the pupil in adjustment with the world in 
which he must live and with generating in him adaptability to a 
constantly changing world. The effect of the secondary school 
upon society should be to enable mankind to control its environ- 
mental relations rather than to abide in an attitude of passive 
acceptance of whatever environmental forces bring to pass. In 
order to achieve this ultimate purpose, the school makes use of 
the following teaching processes: 

1. It utilizes the cultural capital of society to generate in the 
pupil a complete horizon of intelligent attitudes toward his 
world, of just standards of moral and aesthetic values, of the 
special abilities required in his reactions to his physical and so- 
cial surroundings. The secondary school does not teach science 
and history and literature and language; it utilizes these ele- 
ments of culture and others in educating the pupil. 

2. It guides the individual into the discovery of a succes- 
sion of intellectual interests, pursuits which he will follow, whol- 
ly apart from the constraint of the school or the teacher. In so — 
far as he has in the end experienced the broadest possible range 
of such interests, to that degree is he in contact with his whole 
world, to that degree has he acquired adaptability, and to that 
degree has he developed intelligence.* 


* Throughout this work we shall distinguish between the terms “mentality” 
and “intelligence.” In our use, mentality is applied to the native reactive quality 


THE SECONDARY SCHOOL 15 


3. It develops in the pupil ability to study. Now ability to 
study is no abstract, generalized, vaguely felt capacity but rath- 
er a series of very definite powers. It implies chiefly: (a) the 
acquisition of a hierarchy of skills in the use of handwriting and 
in the conventions of the mother-tongue; (b) the development 
of an optimum efficiency in reading the printed page, at the level 
of the reading adaptation; (c) the use of the vernacular as an 
instrument of clear, accurate, and cogent expression; (d) unless 
the pupil’s vernacular is the only language in which civilization 
expresses itself, the effective use of foreign languages; (e) the 
methods of thinking found in mathematics, the physical, biolog- 
ical, and social sciences, and in linguistics; (f) the capacity to 
interpret truth as it is revealed in literature and the fine arts; 
(g) the attainment of volitional control, such as, for instance, 
sustained application in the presence of material which is not in 
itself initially interesting. 

4. It generates right attitudes toward conduct and sees to it 
that they become incorporated into the personality of the pupil. 

Does the secondary school thus defined, as one in which we 
find employed a single characteristic type of teaching procedure, 
necessarily imply that all pupils who are in the secondary period 
of education must be housed in the same building and enrolled 
within the same school organization? 

Administrative needs often make it convenient to organize 
schools for different groups of pupils who have much in com- 
mon apart from the teaching procedure to which all are sub- 
jected. Thus, it is often advantageous to bring together in one 


of the individual, while intelligence implies the acquisition of individual powers 
of adaptation associated with his learning. When we say that an individual is 
“intelligent” about this or that, radio-telephony for instance, we mean that he has 
acquired insight into a body of principles which enables him to rationalize the 
situation in which he finds himself. When we speak of “intelligent teaching,” we 
mean teaching which is carried on in conformity with certain principles, in con- 
trast with a process which is blindly directed. The verdict of psychology seems 
to be that mentality can be improved by training only to a limited extent. Intel- 
ligence, on the other hand, is evidently one of the chief final products of educa- 
tion. 


16 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


type of school the preadolescents; in another, the early adoles- 
cents; and in a third, the late adolescents. We may thus find 
good justification for elementary schools, junior high schools, 
and senior high schools composed of what is now usually the sen- 
ior high school and the junior college. There is, however, little 
justification in principle for division points which correspond to 
the end of the traditional first eight grades and the end of the 
four-year high school. The secondary period begins early in the 
elementary school, and the other schools above named are secon- 
dary schools. The danger is that this rearrangement of school 
organization, which is now well under way, will simply modify 
without destroying the mental stereotypes under the rule of which 
education is viewed as an affair of artificial stages completed, 
and not as a matter of growth in the pupil. As long as we keep 
distinct in mind not less than four aspects of the maturing proc- 
ess—intellectual, mental, social, and physical—and remember 
that the institutional divisions which we have above justified are 
rightly founded upon social and physical maturity alone, we 
shall do no violence to the right appraisal of pupil progress. But 
we must be prepared to find, and provide for, pupils in the ele- 
mentary school who in intellectual development are the peers of 
many in the junior high school; others in the junior high school 
who are intellectually as mature as many in the senior high 
school; and sometimes others still in the latter school who are 
capable of doing and should be doing work of university caliber. 

Nevertheless, in the village and rural school, where the prob- 
lem of administering large numbers is not present, there is no 
good reason why the entire period of general education up to the 
level of self-dependence should not be provided for within the 
same school. The prepossessions attached to the graded system 
must in that case be given up, but no more so than in any school 
which proposes to organize in terms of pupil development rather 
than in terms of artificial stages accomplished. The limitations 
of education in the village and rural school—in the small school 
generally—are not in principle attributable to small enrolments 


THE SECONDARY SCHOOL 17 


but to difficulty in securing teachers of adequate intellectual and 
professional equipment and personality. 

In the definition of the secondary school which has thus 
been set up and argued, the reader will perhaps find suggestions 
of the secondary schools of Continental Europe. If we take the 
German Gymnasium as typical of European schools, there is in- 
deed much resemblance. The latter were evolved to meet the 
needs of people who were going on to the end of the period of 
formal education. The common schools, the Volkschule for in- 
stance, were designed to regiment the masses in that station in 
life to which it had pleased God to call them. In America, every- 
body is “going on,” and the process of regimenting the American 
youth at all is apparently beyond our wisdom—let us hope, be- 
yond our desires. Given what is much the same problem as that 
of the German secondary school, a reasoned analysis of the 
American school leads us to much the same conclusion touching 
institutional organization as that which was earlier worked out 
in practice by Europeans. Had the American reformers wiped 
the slate clean of their preconceptions, and had they been able 
to foresee the course which the evolution of democratic society 
would take, it may well be that they would have developed the 
old American district school into something very like the pri- 
mary and secondary schools as we have defined them in this 
chapter. 


CHAPTER II 
THE OBJECTIVES OF SYSTEMATIC TEACHING 


T the beginning of the modern period of systematic scru- 
A tiny and revaluation of theprocess of education, in ad- 
dition to the administrative stereotypes which had 
grown up in the United States and which have been discussed in 
the preceding chapter, the student was confronted with two tra- 
ditional conceptions of the objectives of teaching both of which 
have very obstinately held their ground and still give way but 
slowly. 

The first of these arose out of the prestige of scholarly learn- 
ing. From time immemorial, that man whose mind was fullest 
stored with the erudition of the ages had been conceived to be 
the best educated, and so education and erudition were thought 
to be one and the same. The curriculum was formulated with 
that principle in mind, and teachers were held to be best pre- 
pared who knew the most about the subjects which they pro- 
posed to teach. 

The second had its origin in the very human tendency to- 
ward propagandism. Man is ever eager to make his fellows hold 
the views which he cherishes, and the rising generation is always 
a singularly fertile field. Hence the objectives of teaching often 
tended to become simply the indoctrination of young people in 
the habits of thinking peculiar to the ecclesiastical or political 
organization which for the time happened to be in control of the 
schools. Nor was that all. It matters little in educational princi- 
ple whether propaganda are administered by a particularly well- 
organized hierarchy, by the Hohenzollern state, or by dear old 
Dr. Blank with his fierce ‘I believe in sound learning, sir.” In 
any case, not the youth and his adjustment is in the foreground 
but the world-plans of other people. 

18 


OBJECTIVES OF SYSTEMATIC TEACHING 19 


But the world refuses to stand still. In time, organized 
knowledge became so extensive that selections had to be made, 
and that is a puzzling process if you still believe that knowledge 
and education are synonymous. Propagandas became so numer- 
ous that the school found it hard to settle upon any definite and 
comprehensive program at all. Any sort of actual product of the 
learning process was largely lost sight of. The school came to be 
thought of as education, and the popular notion became widely 
prevalent that wherever there is a school there education, what- 
ever it is, must somehow be taking place. 

And yet common sense and a modicum of knowledge will 
give anybody a very obvious conception of what the products of 
actual learning and teaching must be, and enable him to distin- 
guish between what is learned and what is not learned. In gen- 
eral, any actual learning is always expressed either as a change 
in the attitude of the individual or as the acquisition of a special 
ability or as the attainment of some form of skill in manipulat- 
ing instrumentalities or materials. Let us illustrate. 

The person who has genuinely acquired the conceptions 
which make up the atomic theory, or the principle of natural se- 
lection, has acquired a new attitude toward the world in which 
he lives. He does not and cannot react to nature as he did before. 
More than that, he cannot lose this new attitude, except as it is 
- modified and refined through the attainment of other new atti- 
tudes. He who has genuinely acquired a given conception or set 
of conceptions in the field of social relationships—let us say the 
notion of liberty under the law—has acquired a new attitude 
toward his relationships with his fellow-men and toward the re- 
lationships of these with one another. There is no question of 
his losing this attitude or of forgetting it. He can no more lose 
it than he can lose the native tendencies which he has inherited 
from his progenitors. More than that, the new attitude inevita- 
bly modifies his whole social behavior; he conceives new ends 
and adopts new means. Once more, the individual who has gen- 
uinely acquired a new notion of duty in the moral world isa 


20 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


changed person; his attitude toward his behavior in the moral 
world is different from what it was before; his behavior itself 
is inevitably different. 

Turning to the acquisition of special abilities, let us use the 
ability to read as an illustration. When the pupil has reached the 
level which we have identified as the primary reading adapta- 
tion, he has undergone a real change in his intellectual organ- 
ization. There is nothing here which can be lost. Many of the 
skills associated with reading may be lost, through disuse, and 
this loss may amount to temporary atrophy of the adaptation it- 
self; but the adaptation is quickly restored in a situation calling 
for its use. Furthermore, with the adaptation actually estab- 
lished, the pupil does read, in all the multitude of situations in 
which reading is desired, for the purpose of gratifying curiosity 
or seeking amusement. So it is with the reading of a foreign lan- 
guage, or the performance of bodily exercises like swimming or 
skating or dancing, or the use of a method of thinking such as, 
for instance, the solution of the quadratic equation. 

The third fundamental type of learning products is that for 
which we shall use the term “‘skill.” Without attempting to set- 
tle the question of the psychological and physiological nature of 
skill or the appropriateness of the term itself, we shall ask the 
reader to connect its use in this volume with the meaning to 
which we apply it. Within our meaning, “skill” is nearly syn- 
onymous with “facility.” When a pupil has attained a given 
adaptation, with all that implies, he has frequently to go on and 
acquire certain skills in the application of his new attitude or 
ability to the situations which call for its use. In the case of the 
reflective adaptations like those arising out of the concepts con- 
nected with the atomic theory, or natural selection, or liberty 
under the law, skill seems to consist largely in the facility with 
which the individual identifies the elements of situations which 
are subject to interpretation in terms of his new attitude. In 
the case of special abilities, like the ability to read the printed 
page, the associated skills are such matters as rate of reading, 


OBJECTIVES OF SYSTEMATIC TEACHING 21 


rate at which reading can be assimilated, and perhaps some 
others. In the reading of a foreign language, the associated 
skills which are built up on the basis of the reading adaptation 
can in general be described as fluency. In the practical arts, the 
skills are comprehended in the term “facility in execution.” 

And so we can say that the learning products which consti- 
tute that process of individual adjustment to the world which we 
call “education,” and which are the objectives of teaching, are 
always either attitudes or special abilities or skills. We shall 
think of attitudes as being always either attitudes of under- 
standing, where reflection and rationalization have been in- 
volved—found typically in the field of the sciences; or attitudes 
of appreciation, where the acceptance of values has taken place 
—beauty, goodness, love of the truth. We find special abilities 
in the use of language, in the performance of music, in walking, 
swimming, skating, and a host of other activities of which these 
will stand as illustrations. Skills we have already defined. 

Now as soon as the educator comes to see the objectives of 
teaching in these terms, the whole process takes on a different 
aspect. He sees that the subject matter used.in the school is not 
valuable in education for its own sake but only as it is service- 
able in generating intelligent and useful inclinations, abilities, 
and skills in the pupil. He has a new and more valid criterion of 
curriculum material and of teaching procedure. He can distin- 
guish more accurately between the region of general education 
in which the adjustment of the pupil is the center of effort and 
the region of the university where knowledge is in truth valuable 
for its own sake. 

The view thus set forth of the nature of the essential prod- 
ucts of learning is one which has been evolving throughout the 
modern period. The efforts of the Herbartians, the supervised 
study movement, project teaching, the direct teaching of the 
modern languages, improvement in primary methods, the educa- 
tional measurement program, the contributions of educational 
psychology—all have tended in the direction of identifying, de- 


22 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


scribing, and measuring actual products as contrasted with rou- 
tine and formal products expressed in terms of time-to-be-spent, 
methods-to-be-followed, ground-to-be-covered, or in terms of 
erudition or information. 

We have already picked up and used the term “adaptation.” 
Perhaps it is time that we defined the term more explicitly, for 
we shall need it as part of the terminology of our study through- 
out the volume. 

The biologist makes very large use of the term, and by it he 
means both the process and the result of the modification of an 
organ, or indeed of a whole organism, so that the plant or the 
animal concerned is brought into a state of better adjustment to 
the environmental conditions which it must meet. Thus, by a 
long series of adaptations a creature has been evolved who walks 
erect, and we call the creature “man.” Similarly, man owes his 
vastly superior mentality to a long series of adaptations in the 
physical organ which we call the “brain.”” In brief, organic evo- 
lution is a story of manifold adaptation by which, on the whole, 
higher forms of life have been produced and in the process have 
been brought into better and more comprehensive adjustment to 
the environment. 

In much the same fashion, the individual human being goes 
through a process of adjustment to the world in which he must 
live; only this adjustment is largely ideational rather than phys- 
ical. In other words, he learns how to live. The successive steps 
in the process are adaptations in much the same sense as the in- 
numerable steps in the evolution of the physical organism were 
adaptations. 

Now the essence of the adaptation is in the principle that it 
represents a change in the organism itself. When the individual 
pupil has come really to understand the principle of natural se- 
lection, he has, as we have seen, taken on a new attitude; he has 
made an adaptation. It is not that he no longer looks upon the 
world as he did before; he cannot do so for he is a changed indi- 
vidual. Thus the process of education or adjustment to life- 


OBJECTIVES OF SYSTEMATIC TEACHING — 23 


conditions is made up of adaptations, and the true learning prod- 
ucts are for the most part true adaptations. 

The single type of learning product to which we think this 
analysis and the term “‘adaptation” do not imply is that compre- 
hended in the category of skills. 

The adaptation is a unitary thing, and the pupil has either 
attained it or he has not. Individuals may differ greatly in the 
length of time and the ease with which they take on the change 
which a given adaptation implies, but, if two pupils have at- 
tained a given adaptation, they cannot differ with respect to the 
fact of their attainment. Skill, on the other hand, is essentially 
a variable. Any individual can be at different points on the 
curve of skill development at different times, and it can truth- 
fully be said that at each point he has some skill. Two individ- 
uals can differ widely in skill and yet each possess skill. It is 
often critically important in pedagogical analysis to determine 
whether we are dealing with an adaptation or a skill. 

The ultimate test of a product of learning which has in- 
volved a genuine adaptation is that it is never lost, otherwise 
than through its transformation into new adaptations or through 
the rise of pathological inhibitions. It is never lost by simply 
fading out. The reason, probably, is that the act of genuine and 
successful learning has resulted in permanent changes in the or- 
ganization of the elements of central nervous structure. A posi- 
tion so at variance with the common experience of school people 
calls for some elaboration and for the presentation of some evi- 
dence. / 

The author has asked his classes of mature teachers to list 
the products which they had acquired more than ten years ago, 
which have been in disuse for at least ten years, and which can 
be performed today substantially as well as ever. There always 
results a list of learnings ranging from early attainments on the 
farm, or in the household, to performance on some musical in- 
strument. In many cases, the students have been interested 
enough to verify the permanency of their original learning by 


24 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


experimental tests. It is significant to note that rarely does one 
of these lists disclose a product which was learned in the school. 
The person had learned to swim, and after the lapse of years of 
disuse he can still swim. Another had learned to bake good 
bread and can still do so. History and mathematics and science 
and foreign language had presumably been learned, at least the 
student had been tested and had been “passed,” but all this is 
as the snows of ancient winters. Violin-playing had been learned 
and the product abides; the translation of Latin had been “cred- 
ited” and scarcely a fragment is left, not enough to render into 
English a sense of the wording of the diploma which certifies the 
student’s degree. And yet some typical school products are often 
still as vigorous growths as ever, after the lapse of years of dis- 
use. In nearly every such case, however, it is observed that the 
product had at some time been used in a functional sense. In this 
person, physics is left, but it is noted that he taught physics for 
several years after leaving college. In this case, arithmetic is as 
functional as it was when the student was preparing for exami- 
nation, but he has had occasion to use arithmetic every day ina 
brief business career. In few instances, where there is no record 
of after-school functional use, is there any evidence of the per- 
manency of learning. Any reader can readily test himself, and 
with rare exceptions he will find that his own intellectual history 
is in conformity with these histories which have been described. 

Why does it happen that some learning persists and other 
learning fades out? The answer is obvious: Some things were in 
fact learned and others were not. Some had amounted to actual 
adaptations; others had been mere memory content, good until 
after examination and then lost. The revelation gives little en- 
couragement to the complacency which holds that after all the 
real educational product of schools is some vague thing which 
can be described as the result of the “‘life at school.” Of a sure- 
ty, the individual does carry out into the world many values 
which have been learned outside of the classroom in the form of 
attitudes which are permanent possessions. In truth, these are 


OBJECTIVES OF SYSTEMATIC TEACHING 25 


the things which he has learned and the classroom product has 
not been learned. Often his whole makeup is a complex of real 
products of this sort, some of which are good and some bad. The 
educational intransigeant who holds to this view of the proper 
nature of the school product should in logic advocate the aboli- 
tion of the curricular activities and the transformation of his 
school into a well-organized, properly supervised club for boys 
and girls. 

A systematic and analytical view of the real product of 
learning thus suggests that there are many activities in the rou- 
tine of the classroom and of instruction which never become real 
products at all and which in the nature of the case should not 
be viewed as such, even in prospect. In general, these activities 
are for the most part those which contribute the assimilative ma- 
terial out of which the real products arise. May we illustrate at 
some length. 

Let us assume, to use one of our former illustrations, that 
the student has really learned the use of the quadratic equation. 
The learning product here amounts to an actual modification in 
his methods of thinking. In the process of attaining the adapta- 
tion, he has been obliged to work through a great many illustra- 
tions of the process itself and of applications to concrete situa- 
tions. He has taken in, it may be, many explanations made by 
the teacher. All of this experience is assimilative material out of 
which the adaptation does or does not arise. In our illustration, 
we assume that the adaptation does arise. Now, the factual and 
experiential material which has thus been used does, and should, 
very promptly fade out of memory. Some of it, as well as wholly 
new material, might be used in testing for the presence of the 
adaptation, but the material itself is never a learning product. 
The pupil has learned from experience but he has not learned the 
experience. 

A unit in history may be, frequently is, the French Revolu- 
tion. The objective here is an adaptation, a new attitude toward 
the past, described perhaps as a conviction of the nature and in- 


26 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


evitable consequences of a long period of personal government. 
In the process of acquiring the adaptation, the student listens 
to lectures by the teacher and reads a great deal. He experiences 
through his reading the arrogance and egotism of Louis XIV 
and the excesses of the reign of Louis XV. He becomes ac- 
quainted with Voltaire and Rousseau; with Mirabeau, Danton, 
and Robespierre. He shudders at the horrors of the Reign of 
Terror. Some of these experiences, like some of the experiences 
of childhood, may become so firmly fixed in memory that they 
never fade. But they are no more products in learning than are 
the memorable experiences of the daily life. Out of them arises 
or fails to arise the attitude which the teacher is striving to de- 
velop. It is the attitude which becomes the real and serviceable 
product of learning and not the experiences themselves; these 
may fade out of memory but the conviction abides. Conversely, 
there may long be retained mere memories of isolated facts, 
without any modifications of attitude whatsoever. In this case 
the individual has learned nothing, and, so far as the unit itself, 
in this case the French Revolution, is concerned, he will remain 
intellectually sterile. 

Again, the teacher may be developing an appreciation of the 
beauty of a lyric or the truth of a drama or a refined taste for 
the short story. He is, or should be, aiming at a series of indi- 
vidual adaptations. If the taste is actually developed, it is a con- 
tradiction in terms to say that it is forgotten. If the beauty or 
the truth is really seen and accepted, the statement itself means 
that a new attitude is discovered. Now in the course of this learn- 
ing, a great deal of reading is done and the teacher perhaps talks 
a great deal as he endeavors to bring about the changed attitude 
which he is seeking to effect. In other words, the pupil passes 
through a body of assimilative experience. Assuming that the 
new attitude has been acquired, it may very well be that the 
greater part of the experience itself fades away. The adaptation 
is revealed by the change which takes place in the character of 
the reading which the pupil now selects. Erudition in the form 


OBJECTIVES OF SYSTEMATIC TEACHING 27 


of knowledge of some pieces of literature read, of their rhetor- 
ical and linguistic structure, of the history of their production, 
is in itself no evidence that beauty and truth have been felt and 
accepted or that tastes have been formed. 

So much for the adaptations which are in the form of under- 
standing or appreciation. Let us now turn to those which are in 
the form of acquired abilities. 

The child, in learning to read his vernacular, practices for 
one, two, or it may be three years, in the use of reading material. 
In common parlance, we say that he learns to read by reading. 
All along, he gets meaning from the printed page, and he may be 
tested with positive results. Nevertheless, he does not read of 
his own accord and ordinarily does not attempt to do so. He 
eventually, however, attains the power to read and manifests 
that power by seeking his own reading material and becoming 
absorbed in the content. He has attained the adaptation at the 
level of which he looks through the discourse and beholds the 
scene beyond. Frequently his learning stops short of the reading 
adaptation and then such power as he had is soon lost. A very 
large proportion of the non-readers in society, such as those who 
were revealed by the famous army tests, are very probably indi- 
viduals who have passed through the routine of the reading 
classes in the primary school but have never learned to read. 
Now the period of practice prior to the adaptation is clearly a 
period of assimilation. Performance which is merely an incident 
of assimilation is not the true learning product sought. Even 
with the recent devices for testing reading power, such as oral, 
rate, and comprehension tests, it may well be that performance 
may be taken for learning—with disastrous consequences. 

Analysis of the learning of a foreign language shows the 
same relation of the learning product to the assimilative process 
and the same liability to mistake the latter for the former. Ii 
we select the learning of French as an illustration, we may dis- 
tinguish three kinds of learning products: First, there is the use 
product, appearing as the ability to read or perhaps to speak, 


28 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


and here we have adaptations of precisely the same nature as 
that found in the process of learning to read the vernacular, 
namely, an acquired ability in the individual manifested in read- 
ing or speaking the language without focal consciousness of the 
discourse which he is using. Second, there are various related 
skills which appear as greater or less fluency in the use of the 
language at the level of the fundamental adaptation. Third, it 
is often desirable to establish comprehension of the language 
structure entirely apart from the use of the language. Confusion 
between these learning-product objectives is very likely to result 
in failure to attain any of them as a real product. 

There is another set of ability adaptations which we must 
bring into the picture, namely, those which are acquired apart 
from any thought process whatever. Among the schoolroom arts, 
spelling is the best illustration. Better illustrations are found in 
that extensive list of pure neuro-muscular adaptations such as 
walking, swimming, skating, and the like. Here the adaptation is 
apparently in the form of a set in the co-ordination of a system 
of neuro-muscular adjustments. The adaptation is attained 
through a period of practice during which for a long time it is in 
doubt. In the end, it is evidenced by reliable use apart from 
guidance or constraint. Contemplate, for illustration, the small 
boy learning to swim. He struggles aimlessly for some time. 
Presently he can maintain himself in the water and progress for 
some little distance. He proudly asserts that he can “‘take twen- 
ty strokes.” The veteran knows that even though he can take 
a hundred “strokes” he cannot yet swim. But one day to his as- 
tonishment and delight he finds that he can maintain himself 
indefinitely. The adaptation has taken place. The veteran’s ver- 
dict is, “Yes, you can swim.” In a similar manner, children prac- 
tice spelling for a long time. They are tested and make no mis- 
takes. The teacher and the supervisor are satisfied. Neverthe- 
less, on the next written paper several words, upon which the 
pupil was impeccable in the test, appear as misspellings. Lesson 
performance had been mistaken for the real product. Eventual- 


OBJECTIVES OF SYSTEMATIC TEACHING — 29 


ly, the pupil spells these words correctly, he always so uses them, 
and he does so automatically. The ability adaptation has taken 
place. 

The test of a real product of learning is then: first, its per- 
manency; and, second, its habitual use in the ordinary activities 
of life. Indeed, so fundamental is the latter of the two tests that 
any truly educated person can appraise the whole education of 
his fellow in its terms. He can note, for instance, how the latter 
forms his opinions. Does he accept the ordinary cant of the day 
as his opinion? Most people do. Or does he critically examine 
the facts, apply the principles which he is supposed to have 
learned in school, and render an opinion in which all reasonable 
educated persons must concur? Does he hold opinions on all 
subjects under the sun, as the illiterate is prone to do, or does he 
distinguish between those fields in which he is entitled to hold 
opinions and those in which he can have no possible basis for 
opinion? If he has been credited with certain courses in eco- 
nomics in college, does he apply economic thinking to the inter- 
pretation of commercial situations in which he finds himself, and 
to the decision which he makes when he votes for a new tax, or 
does he live the life of the economic opportunist? If he has been 
credited with certain courses in English literature, are his at- 
tainments reflected in his choice of cultural reading or does he 
solace his leisure exclusively with the Sunday newspaper and the 
ephemeral story of the day? In the course of Part III, we shall 
have occasion to study in detail at various points the theory of 
valid testing as applied to the various products of learning. 
Suffice it here to state that, however tests may differ, we shall al- 
ways find ultimate reliance in two forms—the assimilation test, 
which seeks to determine whether or not a given adaptation has 
taken place; and the behavior or functional test, which seeks to 
verify the assimilation test through observation of the uncon- 
strained behavior of the pupil. 

An illustration of a successful behavior test is found in the 
following incident. 


30 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


An observer was visiting a “Community Life” course at jun- 
ior high school level. The unit which was being studied, and 
which had been in the process of being studied for some time, 
was “Myself and Others.” The teacher had not only been guid- 
ing the class to an understanding of the principles involved but 
had been endeavoring to make register the significant applica- 
tion to the pupils’ attitude toward conduct. The teacher chanced 
to step out of the room and was absent for a considerable inter- 
val. Everything went on as it-had gone on during the presence of 
the teacher. At the end of the period, the observer followed 
eight of the class to a room in which there was great disorder. 
The eight behaved precisely as they had in the room from which 
they came. The behavior in the social-studies room was clearly 
the result, not of conformity, but of a true adaptation. 

It is evident that a valid content of the school program, that 
is to say, the curriculum, must be expressed in terms of the atti- 
tudes, abilities, and skills which it is desirable to establish. It is 
further clear that it is the height of educational naiveté to ex- 
press the curriculum as a series of courses to be covered. To say 
that the pupil must spend five years in arithmetic and then three 
in higher mathematics, that he must study United States history 
and then modern history, that he must have three years of Eng- 
lish after he has finished the eighth grade and three years of 
some foreign language, and that he must have followed a course 
lasting one year in some one science—all this is on the whole less 
rational than it would be to prescribe two meals a day instead of 
three for some unknown nutritional disorder. Nor in such cases 
is the builder of the course of study wholly at fault. It may 
doubtless be extremely indefinite to prescribe a course in United 
States history to be taken in the eighth grade, but none the less 
such a prescription is usually simply the administration’s way of 
stating that the pupil should, by that time in his career, be learn- 
ing something about the institutions of his own country. The 
teacher is not precluded from organizing the course as a series 


OBJECTIVES OF SYSTEMATIC TEACHING 31 


of essential understandings to be developed in the place of a 
body of information to be memorized—and forgotten. 

Thus far in our illustrations we have dealt with learning 
products which are associated with the specific adaptations im- 
plied by the various courses commonly found in the school. It 
remains to survey the more generalized adaptations which are 
essential, not only as final products in the education of the indi- 
vidual, but also as means in the development of the specific 
adaptations. Perhaps the most obvious of these is that which 
is implied in the expression “learning to think.” 

The educational exhorter has indulged in a great deal of 
vagueness in the use of this expression and, while teachers have 
felt a conviction of need, they have been obliged to grope in a 
great deal of confusion. 

Thinking, as the psychologist views it, is simply a period of 
mediation in the higher nerve centers between the reception of 
an incoming impulse and its discharge in some form of re-estab- 
lishment of neural equilibrium; or, viewed in mental terms, it is 
a period of reflection intervening between stimulus and reaction. 
It is human nature to think, contradictory as this statement may 
seem to the facts of common experience. People no doubt differ 
very greatly in their innate thinking capacity. Some cannot 
think at all, and we set these aside as mental deficients. Some 
think rapidly and others slowly, depending probably upon the 
inherited quality of brain tissue. Adults have in genera! better 
thinking powers than children, probably because the physical 
organ upon which thinking depends is mature in one case and 
immature in the other. On the whole, however, all normal people 
think, or at least can think. Failure of children and adults to 
give any concrete sign of the process is due rather to absence of 
the conditions under which thinking takes place than to lack of 
training in some abstract sense. We can say with a great deal of 
confidence that, given: (a) material to think about; (0) a meth- 
od of thinking; and (c) a motive for thinking, any normal indi- 
vidual will think within the limitations which his native mental 


32 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


structure, or his mental age, determines. These are the condi- 
tions under which thinking takes place. 

The reader can amply verify the statement just made by 
calling to the bar evidence which is within the experience of 
nearly everybody. Illiterates, or near-illiterates, are not infre- 
quently found who, within a field which is their own and in 
which they are actuated by compelling motives, think as effec- 
tively as the most highly trained can think in that particular 
limited field. Contemplate, for instance, a transaction between 
an untutored ancient horse-trader and, let us say, a university 
professor. It would be a bigoted advocate of culture, indeed, 
who would assert that the academician thinks out the situation 
any more effectively than the salesman. The latter has material, 
that is, he knows what he is talking about; he has a powerful 
motive; and he has a crude method, sufficient for his purpose, 
which he has built up out of his experience of the ways of the 
buyer. Not infrequently absolute illiterates think so well in one 
of these specialized situations that they build up for themselves 
somewhat elaborate methods. 

Nor is the verdict of science different from that of the com- 
mon experience. Modern psychology finds little or no evidence 
for supposing that education or any form of training improves 
the native or inherent capacity to think. 

What, then, is accountable for the superiority of the highly 
educated in thinking capacity? In the first place, they have en- 
joyed a vastly greater range of experience, both direct and vi- 
carious, than have the untutored. They have more to think 
about, and by consequence a greatly extended range of interests. 
Hence the range of impelling motives is likewise greatly ex- 
tended. But, more important than all else, they have come into 
the possession of a variety of methods of thinking which are 
sealed books to the uneducated. Mathematics, the various phys- 
ical and biological sciences, mechanics, economics, politics, lin- 
guistics, history—all are primarily methods of thinking and 
only in a secondary sense bodies of informational content. In 


OBJECTIVES OF SYSTEMATIC TEACHING — 33 


addition to these are the generalized methods of thinking which 
grow out of inductive and deductive logic. Some or all of these 
methods of thinking the educated man has acquired, and he thus 
possesses a trained mind in the sense that he has the intellectual 
instruments needed for the interpretation of a wide variety of 
specialized situations. 

Hence, the process of training pupils to think is nothing else 
than furnishing them with an abundance of the vicarious expe- 
rience made possible as soon as the reading adaptation has been 
established, and establishing the adaptations which are implied 
in the study of the sciences. The student who has actually ac- 
quired the true products in the learning of physics has by the 
very fact learned to think as the physicist thinks. He who has 
really learned his history has acquired historical-mindedness, 
and so on. 

Finally, we come to the two major products of the secondary 
school: (a) a wide range of interests and the discovery of some 
dominating interest, and (0) the capacity for self-dependent in- 
tellectual life. An intellectual interest may be defined as an intel- 
lectual pursuit which the individual follows independently of 
the constraint of the school; and educational self-dependence as 
that stage at which the student has realized the meaning and 
purpose of study, has acquired the self-control which self-de- 
pendence implies, and has further acquired the range of methods 
of thinking and of study which remove him from constant de- 
pendence on the teacher. 

Now, from a very early period in the secondary school, gen- 
uine intellectual interests begin to manifest themselves, provided 
the opportunity is afforded. The chief opportunity is exposure 
to a wisely selected stock of books and other cultural experience. 
Such interests are easily identified and recorded. Normally, a 
child passes from one interest to another as experience broadens 
and new experiences in the course of mental maturing become 
possible. In time, there seems to be discovered to the pupil the 
field in which his permanent interest lies. Though it is probably 


| RS THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


not true that this final discovery necessarily occurs in the sec- 
ondary school, several cases have been noted in the laboratory 
within the few years just past in which it is clear that approxi- 
mate final discovery has taken place before the end of the elev- 
enth grade. 

Educational self-dependence before the end of the high- 
school period probably occurs more often than is noted, and, on 
the other hand, it is certain that it frequently fails to appear by 
the end of the four-year college period. We are not concerned 
here with the administrative technique which gives independ- 
ence its opportunity and if need be forces it. That discussion 
must be postponed to later chapters. We are concerned with call- 
ing attention to the principle that it is one of the learning prod- 
ucts of the school, and probably the essential product in a demo- 
cratic society. As such it can be observed, noted, and tested like 
any other true learning product. 


CHAPTER III 
LEARNING AND LESSON PERFORMANCE 


HEN a student has fully acquired a piece of learn- 

WW ing, he has mastered it. Half-learning, or learning 
rather well, or being on the way to learning are none 

of them mastery. Mastery implies completeness; the thing is 
done; the student has arrived, as far as that particular learning 
is concerned. There is no question of how well the student has 
mastered it; he has either mastered or he has not mastered. It 
is as absurd to speak of degrees in mastery as to speak of de- 
grees in the attainment of the second floor of a building or of de- 
grees in being on the other side of the stream, or of degrees of 
completeness of any sort whatever. The traveler may indeed be 
part-way across the stream, he may be almost across, but he is 
not across until he gets there. Once across, he may continue his 
journey indefinitely, but he cannot continue his journey from 
midstream. The pupil may have begun to learn, we can see that 
he is making progress, he has almost learned; but he has not 
mastered until he has completely learned. He may continue to 
other masteries, and there will be all sorts of degrees in the num- 
ber of masteries he attains. He may acquire skill in the applica- 
tion of his learning, and there may be infinite degrees in his skill 
as he improves from no skill at all to expertness. But in the unit 
learning itself there are no degrees; he either has it or he has it 
not. We may then apply the term in substance to the true learn- 
ing products which we have studied in the preceding chapter, 
and affirm that whenever the adaptation in the individual which 
corresponds to a given product in learning has taken place, the 
individual has arrived at the mastery level for that particular 
product. Thus, the child who has reached the primary reading 
adaptation and can actually read may be said to have reached a 


35 


36 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


mastery level. The pupil who has actually acquired that view of 
the material world which is implied in the atomic theory has at- 
tained a mastery level. He who has caught a vision of truth or 
beauty from a classic has attained a mastery. Similarly, the stu- 
dent who has reached the level of intellectual responsibility is a 
master at a vitally important stage in his intellectual and voli- 
tional development. 

Now the whole process of education, of adjustment to the 
objective conditions of life, is made up of unit learnings each 
of which must be mastered or else no adaptation is made. These 
unit learnings cannot be measured but they can all of them be 
evidenced by symptoms or signs revealed in the learner’s be- 
havior. Some symptoms are plainly manifest if we observe 
thoughtfully; others can be detected only by tests designed to 
bring them out; others still can be observed only by the meth- 
ods, and it may be only with the help of the instruments, of the 
skilled psychologist. Whatever the test, its purpose is to throw 
light on the question, Has the pupil learned or has he not? 

It follows that the course material which we find in the cur- 
riculum is valuable in education only as it is analyzed into sig- 
nificant units of learning which generate adaptations in the pupil 
and in that way contribute to his adjustment. It is meaningless 
to prescribe a course in arithmetic or English or grammar or 
French, and let it go at that. The issue is not learning any of 
these but rather the mastery of certain significant units in arith- 
metic or English or grammar or French. The most learned of 
scholars would hesitate to say that he had mastered any of these 
fields. But the child of nine years can indisputably learn to add 
and to identify situations in which adding is the appropriate 
process. When he has done so, he has mastered that unit and 
will never know how to add arithmetically any more truly than 
he does now, albeit he can improve almost indefinitely in the 
skill and accuracy and acumen with which he applies the proc- 
ess. Similarly, the boy in junior high school can indisputably 
learn to read French, that is, he can learn how to use the 


LEARNING AND LESSON PERFORMANCE 37 


printed page in the manner which has the characteristic symp- 
toms of reading. He masters the unit of learning which we may 
define as the reading adaptation in French. In brief, while it is 
idle to speak of mastering a given field of knowledge, at least in 
the secondary school, it is not only entirely possible to master 
important units within that field, but no less attainment consti- 
tutes learning in the educational sense at all. 

This chapter would be uncalled for, were it not for the fact 
that much traditional school practice ignores the mastery of the 
true units of learning and in place thereof focuses its attention 
on the pupil’s performance of assigned tasks. Common practice 
is to treat either the content of a textbook, or the syllabus of a 
course of study, as the learning product to be achieved. The 
content is then broken up into a series of sections called “‘les- 
sons,” each of which is conned by the pupil and in one way or 
another is delivered to the teacher in the form of a recitation. 
The process of instruction may be varied by class discussion of 
the content, by the setting of problems, or by other practices 
which tend to stimulate reflection, but in the end learning is sim- 
ply a process of covering a given body of narrative, descriptive 
or expository discourse, or of solving a given series of problems. 
Within the textbook, especially in science and mathematics, 
may appear the true learning products contemplated by the 
course, in a more or less learnable form, but more often the con- 
tent is merely assimilative material related or unrelated to the 
essential learning products. The ground once covered, it is “‘re- 
viewed” and the recitation form of testing the absorption of 
material is summarized in another test, of the same sort and of 
the same order, known as the “examination.” As the examina- 
tion period approaches, the teacher and the supervisor alike 
often exhibit the height of scientific ingenuousness by creating 
a situation which is skilfully calculated to obscure the very 
symptoms which they are presumably seeking to discover. The 
performance stereotype is in full charge in the teacher’s mind. 
Such being the case, it is perfectly logical to review and prepare 


38 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


for examination, in order that performance on examination may 
be as satisfactory as is possible. Now, if any actual learning 
has taken place, it is assuredly something which amounts to 
transformation in the individual, to something which can be 
tested entirely apart from any preparation for being tested. In 
so far as the pupil knows that he is going to be examined and 
prepares definitely for the examination, it should be evident to 
the most casual reflection that what he has actually acquired 
and made part of himself must be hidden under the mass of 
memoriter material which he has made available and ready for 
examination. He may know, but the examination affords no evi- 
dence that he does know. He may have failed wholly to have ac- 
quired any real product in learning, and yet success in recalling 
content is taken as evidence of learning. What is true of the 
examination is true of the daily test known as the “recitation.” 

The element of mastery is not present simply because there 
has been nothing to master. That individuals survive the proc- 
ess and exhibit in the end evidence of scattered masteries means 
simply that the driving force of native curiosity has brought 
about that casual attainment of actual learning which is acquired 
by any individual in any given round of experience. But such 
casual and scattered masteries are as little to be taken as evi- 
dence of the trained mind as are the ingenious, and perhaps use- 
ful, productions of the clever inventor to be taken as evidence 
that the latter is of the same order of thinker as a Kelvin or a 
Pasteur. 


THE FALLACY OF THE PASSING GRADE 


The practice of keeping the mind fixed on lesson perform- 
ance instead of upon clearly defined units of learning leads 
logically and inevitably to a theory of appraisal and control of 
pupil progress which is the opposite of mastery. Let us call it 
the “theory of the passing grade.” 

If we set up a given body of content to be absorbed, and fixed 
time limits within which the absorption process is to take place 


LEARNING AND LESSON PERFORMANCE 39 


—and that is what the graded-school system necessarily implies 
—there can be but one outcome, human nature being what it is. 
Some pupils will do well, some indifferently, and some will not 
perform at all. Some will remember much, some little, and some 
none at all. But at the end of a year or a half-year, pupils must 
be moved onward to the next grade. Shall we move only those 
who have remembered all? Manifestly not, for in that case we 
shall move nobody. Shall we move everybody? Clearly the ab- 
surdity would be too palpable. We must then move some and 
not others, and it will not do to retain so large a proportion that 
the process itself will come into disrepute. Experience long ago 
settled the proportion to be moved in terms of popular pressure 
in the community. [f we send on a majority, in a land in which 
majorities have a peculiar sanctity, the public will believe that 
the elements of eternal verity are in the school. If we send on an 
overwhelming majority, the public will think we deal in “‘land- 
slides,” and landslide is the last word in political certitude. 
Eighty per cent is a safe majority here, 90 per cent there, and in 
some communities we dare not trust anything less than 97 or 98 
per cent. Hence in A we keep back 20 per cent, and in C we dare 
not retain more than 2 or 3 per cent. Incidentally, A draws back 
its skirts and looks askance at the “low standards” of C. X, 
which is a high-grade private school, massacres 50 per cent and 
and thereby establishes its reputation for “scholarly standards.”’ 

Now, in the process of the daily routine, the teacher cannot 
help observing that some pupils prepare their lessons well and 
some poorly. Can we not grade this daily work and so surround 
ourselves with the atmosphere of quantitative judgment? Yes, 
we can let 100 per cent stand for a recitation in which we can 
find no fault and o per cent for one which is nil. Between these 
extremes, we can let the percentile series stand for all shades of 
judgment of the quality of the recitation delivered. In a similar 
manner can we grade the examination. When the day of judg- 
ment arrives, we can draw the line at some convenient average 
percentile grade and in that way distinguish between the just 


40 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


and the intellectually unrepentant and wretched. Where shall 
the line be? Well, in A we have always been able to escape un- 
due censure if we promote about 80 per cent, and experience 
shows that about that percentage will usually be at or above 70 
per cent on our percentile scale. Therefore let 70 be our “pass- 
ing grade.” In B, however, we find it convenient to promote 90 
per cent, and experience shows that 90 per cent of the pupils 
commonly attain 60 per cent and better. So 60 becomes the 
passing grade in B. 

Thus arises the passing grade as the learning objective, as 
the true product of learning. Of course, as we easily see upon 
analysis of the situation, there is no question of any learning 
product at all. The school is working for performance values 
and not for learning values. Instead of definitely listing the 
units to be learned, and guiding and constraining the pupil into 
a genuine mastery of each as shown by tests focused upon each, 
and then, if you will, counting the units mastered, the pupil has 
been required to con and recite upon a certain number of pages, 
solve a certain number of problems, and translate a certain num- 
ber of exercises. 

In the common parlance of the schoolroom, a pupil is said to 
do “good work” or “poor work,” meaning that he prepares his 
assignments efficiently and industriously or poorly and negli- 
gently, as the case may be. The school is evidently thinking of 
tasks accomplished and not at all of learning acquired. Indeed, 
in the study of schoolroom ways, one very often comes upon 
suggestions of factory psychology, of notions brought over from 
the field of industry. In the daily lesson, textbook school with 
its whole vocabulary of good work and poor work, acceptable 
performance and unacceptable performance, passing grades, 
credits for work done, or perhaps time done, it is hard to escape 
the conclusion that the picture which is in the mind of teacher, 
principal, and public is something like this. The textbook with 
its content, its problems, and its exercises is the job (how that 
word “‘job” is getting across the street from the factory and into 


LEARNING AND LESSON PERFORMANCE AI 


the schoolroom!); the pupils are the hands; the teacher is the 
room foreman; the principal is the mill superintendent; and so 
on to board of directors and stockholders. Wages are in the 
form of grade promotions or credits for work done at or above a 
passing grade. 

But, it may be objected, the pupil learns in proportion to the 
tasks he accomplishes. We shall presently examine the assump- 
tion with the help of factual material, but, before we do that, let 
us reason together and see if it is at all likely. 


TABLE I 
Topic Pupil A Pupil B 

Fee MILI OF SDECER! POU oe riled OIE SRT 81 Passed 72 Passed 

2. Elements of the simple sentence............ 90 Passed 78 Passed 

3. Adjective and adverbial modifiers.......... 50 Failed 71 Passed 

Ae PV FASE ROGIDETSy wih teidaiele'< avs % x'o steely 74 Passed 73 Passed 

GA EEMAOT Se 05s ace 5 Paaree's led, ole alec e Sa Ian, 85 Passed 70 Passed 

PIMPIN TIA OT Gis UiuPalal sternite cintdtal sa 's's'o\s Wola erelaetatene & 82 Passed 79 Passed 

ORO TRANIN Heike clio Wigeiala abies nei’ o\'e/c bu el atareil tamaite 94 Passed 76 Passed 

PREC ASO MEN ST ra oe a cles die tree + ore aie a sla eoenra ss 89 Passed 75 Passed 

PENSE Sites che uals Wai We Siurale siwiaree nie 4 Mi gtimate 75 Passed 70 Passed 

ROMIGCIATIVE CAUSE Uy ci classe ui’ s «0.4 wale nities 63 Failed 71 Passed 
Piss Compound sentence) W000 4/1 San 58 Failed 70 Passed 
PRCA TUCO eel ie ei taiala via hits eis s: salsa hace Mae 77 Passed 71 Passed 
BAM IMUTIELYVE venetian, GE eg sae die'ae ealatenla he 42 Failed 72 Passed 
14. Transitive and intransitive verbs........... 56 Failed 70 Passed 
PAI OT ASO Nay Wuyi oui Shela’ Rika id 73 Passed 73 Passed 


Here are what easily might be the records of two pupils on 
some fourteen topics in grammar, which might, by the way, have 
been treated as learning units. The two recite for some days on 
each topic, performance is scored and an average grade on the 
series is made possible. The passing grade is 70. 

In the first place, have we any evidence whatever of learn- 
ing? No, we have evidence simply of the average performance 
value which the teacher assigns to the pupils in each of the four- 
teen topics. That means, in general, that Pupil A reacted wrong- 
ly to nineteen out of one hundred opportunities on the first top- 
ic; to ten on the second; to fifty on the third; and so on. What- 


42 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


ever he may have learned, there is certainly no evidence of mas- 
tery on any of the topics. We can assume that he had probably 
made more or less progress on the road to mastery. 

But granted that 70 per cent performance is equivalent to 
acceptable learning, does the average grade of 73 mean that this 
pupil has acceptably learned the field covered by the fourteen 
topics? No, for this involves us in the assumption that by learn- 
ing Topic 2 very well the pupil must thereby have accumulated 
enough intellectual surplus to convert Topic 3 from non-learning 
into learning, and so on down through the list. Patently absurd. 
Pupil B, steady plodder that he is, performs very poorly on 
every topic but he passes every one. Now the hypothesis of the 
school is that a topic is learned when the pupil attains a passing 
grade—7o in this case. So pupil B must have learned all the top- 
ics in the series. His average grade is the same as that of Pupil 
A. And yet the latter certainly failed to learn five of the four- 
teen topics. On the school’s own theory, learning values are not 
proportional to performance values. Indeed, there is nothing 
more than a casual relationship. 

Let us further examine the issue in the light of typical 
school experience. 

Perhaps the most important elementary product of learning 
in mathematics is the variation relationship. The fourth-grade 
child encounters it when he ascertains how many eggs can be 
bought for ten dollars if eggs are seventy cents a dozen. He 
works many problems of that sort, over a mathematical expe- 
rience which usually lasts several years. Has he, in the end, gen- 
eralized his experience and acquired an attitude to the world of 
quantities such that he always recognizes the relationship when 
it exists? In fact, he does acquire the true learning product only 
casually and in exceptional instances. In the physical sciences, 
in the practical arts, and in the concerns of everyday life, the 
common experience is to find large numbers of mentally alert stu- 
dents, who have survived to the latter years of high school and 


LEARNING AND LESSON PERFORMANCE 43 


to college, who can utilize this method of thinking only if they 
are taught anew its specific application to all new material which 
they encounter. And it is reasonable to expect that when a pupil 
has worked over innumerable instances of the application of 
such a principle it is only by accident that the principle itself 
will register, apart from identification of the unit learning and 
direct teaching, and reteaching if need be, to the point of tested 
adaptation. There is a vast difference, in the learning situation 
described, between saying “This pupil has worked seven of 
every ten exercises correctly” and being able to say “This pupil 
has definitely caught the central idea.” 

Another illustration of the same set of phenomena in another 
field, that of foreign language, German for instance. Here the 
pupil spends a year, or more commonly three years, in pursuit of 
a long series of assignments in textbooks which discourse about 
the language and present innumerable exercises in illustration of 
the usages or grammatical principles which are treated. Now, if 
the teacher were asked to sit down and list the real learning 
products in view, he would probably enumerate: (1) ability to 
read the language; (2) possibly ability to speak the language; 
and (3) comprehension of the language structure. But are these 
products all the while in the foreground of the teacher’s con- 
sciousness? Not if the ground-to-be-covered theory is consis- 
tently followed. Rather is the performance of the daily exercise 
the important thing. Day in and day out the pupil satisfies the 
teacher with his fidelity to the assignment and acquires a high 
average grade. He succeeds on the examination in proportion as 
he can recall the details of the immense mass of experience which 
he has encountered. Improvement, in reading power let us say, 
is seldom tested, and if tested corrective instruction is rarely 
undertaken. In the end, have any acquired the learning products 
for which the curriculum stands? Some have done so, but cas- 
- ually and uneconomically at best. The majority can neither 
read, speak, nor give any intelligible and illuminating account of 


44 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


language structure. Again, performance has been valued rather 
than product; learning is conceived as barely acceptable per- 
formance. 


THE GET-BY ATTITUDE 


What effect on the pupil’s conception of the nature of his 
learning shall we expect when part-learning is systematically set 
up as the acceptable standard? 

Let us lay aside, for the moment, our objections to per- 
formance of the daily task as evidence of learning and assume 
that such performance is some sort of valid objective. We have 
seen that the theory itself compels us to set up a passing grade 
as a measure of acceptable performance; otherwise the theory 
itself is impossible in practice. Seventy per cent is such a com- 
monly accepted passing grade, though any other would serve 
the purposes of our argument. If letters are used, either the sim- 
ple alphabetical order from A to E, or descriptive initial letters, 
the result is much the same, since always the test is acceptable 
performance rather than perfect, or even adequate, perform- 
ance. Nor can it be urged that 70 per cent stands for mastery 
and that higher grades stand for additional masteries. The per- 
centage does not represent a count; it is a symbol of the teach- 
er’s judgment of the value of performance when too per cent 
represents his valuation of a flawless performance. The average 
grade represents no quantity but simply the average of the num- 
bers which stand as symbols of the teacher’s judgment. 

As the pupil goes on from grade to grade, from course to 
course, from credit to credit, he seldom encounters any other at- 
titude in his elders, whether parents or teachers, than that edu- 
cation consists in the partial performance of tasks, in perform- 
ance up to a level the attainment of which will relieve him from 
laborious repetition of the servitude. There is no thought of full 
performance; full performance is the achievement of individ- 
uals who believe in works of supererogation. Education is 70 
per cent performance; one goes to school to acquire education; 


LEARNING AND LESSON PERFORMANCE 45 


why pursue the car after one has caught it? True, it is gratify- 
ing to be rated among those who attain creditable grades, 80 per 
cent to go per cent, let us say, but why be hag-ridden by a vain 
ambition to surpass one’s fellows? Or, if one must, let us set to 
it and surpass everybody, with an average grade of 97 per cent. 
Let us note that even very superior performance as thus con- 
ceived is not full performance. From the passing grade to the 
highest grades awarded, partial performance is accepted and 
sanctioned as valid performance. Now, even granted that per- 
formance is translatable into learning, mastery can certainly not 
arise out of partial performance. The whole theory, therefore, 
of necessity eventuates in building up in the developing pupil 
the conviction that performance is achievement, that very in- 
ferior work is acceptable work, and that the most superior per- 
formance is still less than full performance. 

Study of problem cases, in the laboratory schools especially 
but elsewhere as well, seems to show in many pupils a character- 
istic well-defined volitional perversion which we have come to 
call the “get-by attitude.” The pupil thus afflicted—and the vic- 
tims are many—comes to see any task which he has to do, not as 
a thing to be accomplished in a finished manner as a matter of 
course, but rather as an undertaking upon which he will econo- 
mize effort to the degree which experience has taught him will 
be accepted. If we raise the standard by requiring a higher pass- 
ing grade for certain purposes, we simply require greater exer- 
tion without changing the attitude. As the pupil goes on into 
high school and college, he often becomes very skilful in his 
ability to just scrape through. What college teacher has not 
met these people? They occasionally become solicitous about 
grades and upon being assured that their work is acceptable, re- 
ceiving B perhaps when the passing grade is C, they at once 
relax. 

Now, the teacher, and perhaps the parent, passes this all off 
with a good-natured smile and the comfortable verdict “Just a 
boy—he will come out all right.” Yes, it is just a boy—a nine- 


46 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


or ten-year old boy. The truth of the matter is that the attitude 
when found in high school or college is a serious perversion and, 
unless corrected, results in permanent volitional retardation. 
The attitude carried over into adult life means irresponsibility, 
low standards, and, whenever the social controls become relaxed, 
lawlessness in a variety of social relations. Such an adult is in- 
capable of becoming a citizen, in the social sense of that term, 
albeit he may legally be capable of voting and holding office. 

The educational determinist meets us with the rejoinder, 
“This is the kind of persons such people are—they were born 
that way and that is the whole of it.” Again not so. The per- 
version being identified, the teacher can set up the appropriate 
learning unit and teach the pupil out of his perversion in much 
the same way in which he would teach a principle of economics 
or a drama. Only the remedial work will be done in the presence _ 
of heavy odds, if the school still insists on a theory of adminis- 
trative technique which is as well calculated as possible to de- 
velop continuously the perversion anew. 


PERVERSION OF THE PUPIL’S ATTITUDE TOWARD HIS EDUCATION 


It is far from true that all pupils in schools whose teaching 
is founded on the belief that lesson performance is translatable 
into learning are afflicted with the specific volitional perversion 
which has thus been described. Under the stimulus of ambition 
or emulation or because a chance interest has been wafted in 
their direction, a great many, the majority we hope, do achieve a 
genuinely good standard of performance. Many of them out of 
performance acquire the true learnings intended. Nevertheless, 
a great many do pass on into higher classes and other institu- 
tions with a curious lack of sense of the reality of learning, at- 
tributable without much reasonable doubt to the performance 
conceptions to which they have all their lives been accustomed. 

A student is called into conference by the author to discuss 
the former’s shortcomings in the use of his mother-tongue in 


LEARNING AND LESSON PERFORMANCE 47 


written papers. After the customary introductory remarks, con- 
versation something like the following takes place: 

“But, Professor, I have always had good marks in English 
in high school and college.” 

“Yes, but let us look at this sentence. Just what do you 
mean?” 

“Well, I suppose I mean—” 

“Ts that what you say?” 

“TI will get my English grades from the recorder’s office and 
bring them to you.” 

Happy thought; that will adjust the whole matter] 

Now, the student is mentally capable and there is funda- 
mentally no reason why he should not become a well-equipped 
man, but just now he and [ are hardly talking the same language. 
To him formal education is purely a matter of his precious 
grades. He has not the remotest idea that they stand for valid 
reality in terms of any intellectual activity of his own. In time 
we get together and he comes to take a genuine pleasure in re- 
cording his reasoning in respectable discourse. The picture is 
composite; it is not an extreme case but typical. I have no doubt 
that the experience in one form or another can be duplicated 
over and over again by many if not most of my readers. It rep- 
resents a fairly normal end result of performance schooling. 

What of the multitudes of youngsters who stray from the 
pathway of schooling long before they have reached university 
level? Is it at all likely that they have taken on the adjustments 
in attitude to the modern world which is education, unless they 
have done so by chance? What of the alleged submerged intelli- 
gence of the 80 per cent of our population? Is it nature alto- 
gether or nurture in part? 

And so we return to mastery of the true learning products. 
In the list of grammar topics on page 41 we have a series of 
possible unit learnings. The list evidently does not cover all the 
learnings in this field which are needed in order that the struc- 
ture of his discourse may be comprehensible to the graduate of 


48 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


the secondary school; but even so it goes far. Such as it is, how- 
ever, the list can be viewed strictly as one of identified, signifi- 
cant units of learning. Teaching which is intent upon actual 
learning will then present each unit in succession and persevere 
in its effort until the pupil has indubitably caught the meaning 
and sense of the unit and manifests his mastery through his reac- 
tion to searching tests calculated to settle the issue whether he 
has learned or has not learned. Such teaching is not satisfied to 
grade the pupil 70 and pass on, for it realizes that three failures 
out of ten on valid test items means that the pupil is only on his 
way to mastery and has not yet arrived. 

Thus the contrast between direct teaching and lesson learn- 
ing. 


CHAPTER IV 
THE PRODUCT OF LESSON-LEARNING 


ROM time immemorial people have supported schools 
= distrusted their product. The man of affairs distrusts 

book-learning. The successful practitioner of a profes- 
sion sometimes refers contemptuously to the textbooks of his 
calling. Few people have full confidence in him whose life is a 
lesson learned. Schools are caricatured and the schoolmaster 
patronized. And yet schools are carried on and extended in a 
manner which can leave little doubt of the conviction of modern 
peoples that the school is one of the vital institutions of civilized 
society. Why this appearance of puzzle-headedness, this appar- 
ent faith in schools and distrust of their product? 

Most professional students of the educative process in our 
own time and in past ages have in effect recognized the anomaly 
and have sought to divert the school’s attention from bookish- 
ness to learning. In the measurable success of their efforts lies 
most of the progress of the modern period. In large measure, the 
school practices which we have discussed and criticized at some 
length in the preceding chapters probably account for the dis- 
crepancy between schooling and education. In the present chap- 
ter, we shall study the concrete outcome of that teaching pro- 
cedure which seems to be chiefly responsible. 

The procedure referred to is the theory of teaching tech- 
nique which we have perhaps sufficiently described as lesson- 
learning and lesson-testing. We have discussed its relation to the 
mastery idea. Probably none of its thoughtful practitioners 
would admit that they are in principle unregardful of the real 
learning which is assumed to be associated with lesson-learning. 
They must, however, rest their case on the assumption that les- 
son-learning automatically transfers to the real learning for 


49 


50 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


which it stands. We shall present some evidence tending to show 
that it does so in practice only casually and uncertainly. 

In 1920, the author undertook to investigate the relation of 
success in daily recitation to actual achievement in certain 
courses. At that time, the technique of the teaching investigated 
was far from being an extreme form of lesson-learning. The con- 
tent of the daily lesson was illuminated by direct teaching in va- 
rious ways. The classes were small, and the teacher had large 
opportunity for corrective work with the individual pupil. Nev- 
ertheless, the atmosphere was that which is always created by 
the assignment of the daily task and evaluation of the student’s 
- average performance rather than his attainment of the under- 
standings, or appreciations, or abilities, presumably contem- 
plated by the teaching. The results of the investigation were 
originally presented in the School Review for January, 1921, 
Volume X XIX, pages 19 ff. They are reprinted here, with some 
additions, quite as much for the sake of suggesting a method of 
investigating the problem and of testing pupils for real learning 
as for the useful evidence which they contain. 

The initial study was applied to four classes in Latin, and 
it is the data of that study which are here presented. Similar 
investigations referred to below were subsequently made in 
other classroom subjects and in other schools. In the Latin 
study, the real learning is ability to he ae the thought of the 
printed Latin page. 

The daily-lesson assumption is that if a pupil prepares his 
lessons well he will correspondingly gain in power to interpret 
the discourse. Accordingly, sight translations were selected 
which were in character of discourse the same as the material 
upon which the pupils had recently been practicing. That is to 
say, Caesar was selected for the class which had been reading 
Caesar; Cicero and Virgil for the classes which had been reading 
the works of these authors. In the case of the beginners, sight 
passages from the beginners’ book in use were used. The mate- 
rial of the test was broken up into thought units and scored in 


THE PRODUCT OF LESSON-LEARNING 51 


proportion to the number of units to the meaning of which the 
pupil correctly reacted. No account was made of grammatically 
correct rendering, or of any other qualitative differences, so long 
as the pupil showed power to interpret rightly the thought units. 
If he evidently got the meaning he was credited; otherwise, he 
was not credited. No time limit was set. After the sight test had 
been written, the pupils were told to take the test as the lesson 
for the following day. The test was then again set and scored as 
before. It should be noted that the investigation was compara- 
tive in character, and hence the absolute value of the scores is of 
minor account. The test was the same for the two days, the 
teacher and pupils were the same, and the scorer was the same 
person. 

We of course expect that pupils will do better on the second 
test than on the first since they have had opportunity to correct 
errors and to prepare themselves. The meat of the matter is, 
How important is this lesson preparation? If a given pupil does 
nearly as well on the sight test as he does on the prepared work, 
it is reasonable to suppose that his practice in translating for the 
daily task is resulting in ability to interpret. If he does much 
better on the prepared lesson, it is equally reasonable to con- 
clude that good daily performance is not resulting satisfactorily 
in the acquisition of ability. In this case, he can perform well 
provided he can cram himself for performance. 

Let us examine the results for Latin II, a course in Caesar’s 
Gallic War. 

We note that Pupils A and M do as well on the sight as on 
the prepared. A is evidently gaining power at a high rate while 
M is gaining power at a low rate, but none the less the latter’s 
daily performance transfers to real learning such as it is. 

The scores of none of the others are within a range of ten 
points on the two tests; but those of B, C, and O are within a 
range of fifteen points, and those of G are within a range of 
twenty points. In these cases we can conclude that some consid- 
erable transfer is taking place, but none of them shows the con- 


52 


THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


TABLE II 
EXHIBIT OF ABILITY AND LESSON SCORES, 1920 


LS 


SIGHT 
Pupil Score 
Bi dint tha Saved chemeiwre esti 100 
Bleich in baeronns ti 100 
CUR CMU EED aimee tetehe 100 
Fe eI ig tia 95 
ory a) Duala gee eee leis 95 
Oe MAC iee Cele etek eels 95 
CPU Neen ete ils go 
Us UAL OSD Die Sa ES go 
Lea) Sars we Watelelerciaen sieve 90 
Pete areichacs Went tae date ds 85 
| USE eeu ee ORME er teaeR 81 
17.5% slaniduwec vinnie’ 76 
IVT ea tea ay ata eee eat 76 
TNs Gin Seat ciate ee 71 
Ste ee a etek 67 
Pyoa he cae fg a'ala nade 96 
| LIGA AES AAW ne Fl 87 
Caen sata 87 
Deora Re ewe ots 61 
| OPERA 5 Uh PRR iy 52 
eS we eadate ak chute mee 44 
CSUR rie iorars whe ties 44 
De gateratotene sie emenaee 44 
Dune ia eG wrarnia ele whe 39 
AtaitetaRieints eto ees hia 39 
BOE ele ton acca gets Bag 39 
1 RaW OO Deal EL Me ee bgt 35 
U8 RR AR a al 35 
EDP Lia tabs “aha abies gotobe’% mts 30 
GDL iain ie prelie 9 graces 30 
Road ania bce oe a's 26 
PUL a etoe aie ee Sea's 22 
| DLE ee Ney 17 
Sarena parallpie ata ¢ 13 
hig Chane Pag Nae fo Boe Q 


PREPARED 
Pupil Score 
CORSON PN Gy oie: bis oat aes 100 
1 eA a Pa 2 a 05 
DSIRE ae weed hie 95 
a See Ry eae ae He TP aS 95 
| ed ger cee aes 05 
MI ei a ia eae a aleuse a 95 
Oaths 3's sc cpio ae 95 
Meer tea'a'g cin wee tele 95 
Dab eete Ais: wera eee takai 90 
EI yy al olee e ng edie fate) 
Re at a a eee 85 
IVE Cesc s sales Vets ead 
AP sR ae a ne PA 81 
Don Mol hihe oe ee eet 81 
Pee ws Phe UE ae A 76 
any ees Pe e's ae 6 100 
FRR i Sey ae 100 
TRG Tee ce nie + seats s 100 
PARROTT AYE, lita TY Gick 96 
IAG Ee te eae EN 06 
TD Gvlie ax hiv beset eee 96 
BS Neiaivig «cas ae saan 06 
} OE MICS A 87 
ee Si ie Wye is): 78 
LL ard te eee 74 
Tes wale «3c 70 
De 8 ee 70 
Re ee ee eee 65 
ED raw a al costae aa ee 65 
Gea eG sis eee ee ee 61 
Di aa ante 57 
Oey he ec ee 52 
Sunk eee ee ee 48 


THE PRODUCT OF LESSON-LEARNING 


TABLE Il—Continued 


SIGHT PREPARED 
Pupil Score Pupil Score 
Latin III 
AR dba, bias aia poate 59 EL piste oule's)s evalu gate gr 
a aie a nea sataals ss 59 12 oie ete ies gi a A cg QI 
OR a Oreste ees 54 cde ae Nelle oe Papecelaks 82 
Dita ie Bs hk lls ly s 50 IN aete G's 6 she'd 82 
iy Sieg ng em te A 45 QE tev ukaaatde ies 82 
LE i OP es a 40 Fett EN PRES CR SER, (a) 
Ceo ee aes cane ues 4I Meee ty oe sls caters es 76 
ae’ ease week Mah kes 36 Berne duis yatiet ei, 72 
Ss pielehesate Ou ote le oes 36 SPUR oie alaca alates Y 72 
A Fat cE Pe ete ge 32 ADA Unieiideles ah fog Wake) Wx 68 
Ree aN EE Sse 32 Ls Yer pli nit 63 
Da eur eis eave dice LO) 32 Wiis eee eA 50 
IIB aie Pe cers 27 HES SPT ee ea taes 50 
IN ee teats 8 hy gelato a 27 [OSE AUP RVAN A 50 
CIS Pee ere etree oi eia 27 Eyl ee bees e Aa 
Bi Pes Rees Bil ae 14 CIGAR RAB ae SPU OD ae 
Latin IV 
PRES ey ec aleiwie ks wits 92 US Ha oi ela eA ui 100 
ee sa thos eke 81 DOCS ease cata 100 
AGU ahey) Sire sbcuie isles 73 Po aivin death deletabn 100 
Lee eno oes + fe Troe ae wens eeate 100 
Ete shaeicisia se s'a,0 (sis ¢ 69 Deere seh ec ewesels are 06 
1 ad is BN AOR Ar ee 65 Dieser Ne? 96 
ERE A de 62 | Rs Pea ME 92 
Flores Ce eee trate 58 Ee ier eas oe ate 02 
Ce liikae terol ee 58 LO Rats hpiy eo ER rae: 
JIA. ae ee 54 CO aS 85 
Roisin cc see I 46 Ce isa bikin etei als 83 
ita eRe ir nie eye 46 4 PicNeceuel suena aenulie head 81 
DL yA wan cape os teenies 46 Dee ce en os a eatas 8r 
DD GLAS iditenaterenes 35 OT ap atanie e 81 
2. Ee, ar re ae 27 Wart Re adres dora 69 
Doe er ce eetete ee 19 (Anbar iatih Rie 4 os Rag aah 65 


53 


vincing characteristics of A and M. Of course, as might be ex- 
pected, the scores of the others show a gradation with respect to 
the power being tested, but what of the scores of E, F, K, N, P, 


54 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


R,S, and T? Some of the latter, notably E, N, and K, are con- 
spicuously good lesson-learners, and some are poor lesson-learn- 
ers, especially R, S, and T; but in none of them is there evidence 
of any considerable transfer. In the cases of two pupils, or 10 
per cent of the class, we seem to get evidence that daily perform- 
ance is resulting in real learning in a sense in which it is not 
true of any others. In the cases of eight pupils, or 40 per cent 
of the group, there is clearly little or no gain in power. 

Turning to the scores for Latin III, which was a Cicero 
course, we note at once that the absolute ability to interpret 
Ciceronian discourse is nowhere as great as the ability shown by 
A, B, and C in the previous case to manage the writing of Julius 
Caesar. Nevertheless, we find that B, E, I, and K (Latin IIT), 
or 25 per cent of the group, are within the five-point range in their 
scores on the two tests while H, O, and P, or 19 per cent, are con- 
spicuous lesson-learners who show ability to perform the daily 
task out of all proportion to their actual learning. 

In the scores for Latin IV, we find no such clear evidence of 
superior learning from daily performance, but the scores of A, 
B, and C plainly show a learning situation which is very differ- 
ent from that which is shown by the scores of H, I, and O. 

In the light of our discussion of the revelations of the scores 
in Latin II, III, and IV, we discover a very different result in 
Latin I (the beginners-book class). Here we find that the scores 
of L (Latin I) are the only ones which suggest a considerable 
development of the lesson-learning attitude, and we encounter 
the curious phenomenon of three cases, those of A, B, and I, in 
which the prepared lesson score is actually lower than the sight 
test score. What was there in the circumstances which might 
suggest an explanation of the marked difference in the bearing 
between the results of Latin I and those of the other courses? 

First of all, it is probably true that these pupils, being new 
to the school, had not become good lesson-learners. In the 
phraseology of the teacher, they had not “learned how to 
study,” and there seems to be some reason to think that they 


THE PRODUCT OF LESSON-LEARNING 55 


were happy in their ignorance. This may account for the sur- 
prising circumstance of the relatively low scores on the prepared 
lesson. 

It is also true that they had experienced a much larger meas- 
ure of direct teaching than had the other pupils. The technique 
of the classroom in Latin was at that tirne in process of being 
assimilated to the procedure which had been found effective in 
French and which is described at length in our discussion of the 
language-arts type of teaching. 

Further, the whole routine of lesson-learning, for there was 
still a great deal of this aspect of teaching to the fore, was very 
specific in its purpose, and it was directed toward the units of 
real learning contemplated by the course. That is to say, if the 
use of the ablative absolute was to be learned, the textbook ma- 
terial centered around the ablative absolute; if the purpose 
clause with ut was to be learned, lesson-learning centered about 
that usage, and so on. Accordingly, it was possible to center 
teaching material much more closely upon the specific learning 
which was supposed to be acquired. 

Since the study which has thus been described was made, I 
have been curious to find out in factual terms whether similar 
effects could be found in other schools. With the help of my stu- 
dents, I have been able to collect a considerable variety of simi- 
lar material, in foreign language, mathematics, science, and 
spelling in the elementary school. Sometimes the tests applied 
have been of the type suggested here. Sometimes, in both science 
and mathematics, the procedure has been to compare perform- 
ance on exercise material with performance on the interpreta- 
tion of simple situations to which the exercises were supposed to 
apply. In a somewhat extended spelling study, comparison was 
drawn between performance on spelling lessons and perform- 
ance with the same words used in free written papers. Always 
the same sort of result appears. In one study the number of pu- 
pils showing high transfer from lesson-learning to the thing to 
be learned was as high as so per cent of the group tested. In 


56 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


most studies the number of high transfer cases ran from perhaps 
I5 per cent to 25 per cent of the groups. In every study, there 
appeared some instances of very low scores on the learning test 
united with very high scores on the lesson test. The differences 
shown in the study touching the percentage of high transfer are 
probably in the main due to differences in the teaching. Some 
teaching had a large element of direct teaching of the unit learn- 
ings themselves, while other teaching depended upon lesson- 
hearing to a relatively greater degree. 

We now turn to a type of evidence which approaches the 
problem from a different angle. 

In connection with the laboratory investigation before cited, 
scores on an achievement reading test in French, of the same 
type which was used in Latin, were compared with the semester 
grades in the same course. The semester grades were the aver- 
age of the teacher’s estimates of daily performance heavily 
weighted and combined with performance on a semester exami- 
nation. The comparison is exhibited in Table III. 

Now the semester grades represented at that time the 
school’s appraisal of the value of the pupils’ learning, while the 
test scores are some index of the pupils’ achievement of the real 
learning product. Let us examine the exhibit. 

We see at once that the school was probably putting a 
roughly correct appraisal on the learning of A, C, E, I, K, M, O, 
and S, or 40 per cent of the class. On the other hand, it was put- 
ting a grossly wrong interpretation on the learning of B, D, F, 
G, P, R, and T, or 35 per cent. D and G, who exhibited accept- 
able evidence of actual learning, were barely achieving the pass- 
ing grade of 65. B, who showed evidence of a high grade of ac- 
tual learning, was unable to satisfy the teacher that his perform- 
ance was more than mediocre. T, P, and R, who were being 
“honored” by the school, presented evidence of only the vaguest 
sort of partial learning. 

It may be objected that the comparison thus instituted ig- 
nores the fact that there was much grammar represented in the 


THE PRODUCT OF LESSON-LEARNING 57 


semester grades. Whether or not a test which would have com- 
pared learning in grammar with lesson performance in grammar 
would have shown essentially different results we leave to the 
reader’s judgment. The issue, however, is immaterial. The true 


TABLE III 


COMPARISON OF ACHIEVEMENT TEST SCORES WITH 
SEMESTER GRADES 





Pupil | Sight Pupil | iene 
French II 
POW als sO ER vee els 100 Aa e areas ees 100 
To eS Nau Saale aiecors 97 Pigeti given k tae bay, 97 
Soe enateiels ele 8 es ain sats 97 fae OC aay ange ai 97 
Ly ae ake eae 0 Ale go RUA Coe a a oa go 
DOMOMS sae ts die ate se go Oar eae bb Nbr aly 90 
TT eign cey bible crm go Bee Blas gee atia.s 90 
OR cip Role sis vate ney go BOP TIG talats wi citar aa 90 
he tees We efecto ees 83 Rea vtec ame as 83 
Meade wis ete em cetera ess ik 79 Eta s ae ace ue hare 79 
eet ad billy Siler erairais 76 1 UE Da ee Seo age 76 
ete eS al slaiain visit dae ao 76 A sania t Weck lai ants 76 
TEU sia, Wee Gelb ls atelo's 72 Diereik laiaihote Cistersie ale 72 
11 Sons ea aap nae dbl 69 eee areata a aia ees 69 
NigMimasakicitewy 2c 69 ME cei ce Seley tee 69 
Ry Meret ake Seles vids) 69 Gc aulays Wel sick e cams Uke 69 
BAY Ves been DEES 66 Pretec Mee esas 69 
Des eecesatet brcters 66 ene aieiieaecais wie 3 66 
SPE S AA Ot MP OTIS a 66 LD ae AU ert ae 66 
Sis Joisveih Gintetelonmatece tea 62 Cee avahe oie eee 66 
PSS dys Cee eee en ee 48 UN Are eae hae whey, ira 62 


learning product here is ability to read French. If grammar 
helps toward the attainment of that ability, well and good. We 
are testing ability to read, not erudition which may or may not 
have contributed to the learning. 

We might go on and fill this volume with evidence of this 
sort. We have gone far enough to show that our analysis of the 
reasonable expectations of the outcome of the daily lesson, 
ground-to-be-covered, time-to-be-spent theory, is borne out by a 


58 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


substantial body of fact. The author apprehends little doubt in 
the mind of the reader that indefinite exploration of the results 
of the teaching theory which is under criticism would lead to es- 
sentially the same induction which comes out of the limited body 
of factual material which we have exhibited. We can see the 
principles which are at work. It is important to contemplate 
now those principles from the point of view set up by this 
chapter. 

There seem to be three rather clearly differentiated pupil- 
learning types revealed by the study, and the differentiation 
which we here suggest seems to be borne out by our unreported 
laboratory case studies. The practicing teacher will, we think, 
have little difficulty in verifying the types. 

The first of these is the type which does well on daily per- 
formance, and in the process attains the real learning units. 
These pupils seem to attain the mastery level from their lesson- 
learning. Let us designate them the “transfer type.” As a class, 
they are adaptable individuals who can conform to almost any 
sort of constraint. They are conspicuously dutiful. They are 
often successful in after-life, in spite of the popular tradition 
that class leaders do not succeed in practical situations. They 
are the individuals to whom the school points with pride, and 
likely enough they are the chief justification of the determinist 
writers who conclude that only a small percentage of humanity 
is really educable. They are the ones who justify our frequent 
statements that out of the formalistic practice of teaching only 
a few individuals actually learn, and these only casually and un- 
systematically. It should be observed that pupils who belong to 
this type do not necessarily stand high either in performance or 
in learning. They sometimes learn lessons poorly but what they 
learn appears as some part of a true learning product. The 
reader will have no difficulty in identifying illustrations of the 
type in the tables which have been exhibited in the foregoing 
pages. 

The contrasting type is a group who attain a wholly negligi- 


THE PRODUCT OF LESSON-LEARNING 59 


ble amount of real learning but are able to make a very credit- 
able daily performance. Let us designate them the “lesson- 
learner type.” They frequently show marked ability in perform- 
ance and consequently are quite as likely to be among those who 
receive the highest approbation of the school as are individuals 
who belong to the transfer type. They are doubtless the ones 
who have justified the tradition that class leaders do not succeed 
in after-life, for the world’s demand is for the real learning prod- 
ucts and not for lesson-learning. 

The third group is composed of those who accomplish little 
or nothing in the daily lesson performance but who sometimes 
surprise us by their mastery of the real learning product. B, D, 
and G in Table III are illustrations. We can only conjecture 
what the learning situation is with these people. They are fre- 
quently catalogued by the teacher as either mental defectives or 
as ne’er-do-wells of some sort. They assuredly never belong to 
the first category, for the definition of mental defect excludes 
them. To the second? Very likely in some cases. But there are 
others. We not infrequently encounter a pupil in school or an 
adult in after-life of whom we say, ‘‘You cannot tell this person 
anything; he has to learn from experience.” To some pupils the 
daily lesson apparently means little or nothing. It is not only un- 
intelligible but irksome. They can learn but they either cannot 
or will not learn that way. Let us call them tentatively “direct 
learners” to distinguish them from the other two types. Occa- 
sionally an individual has the trait to such a degree that it has 
the appearance of a veritable malady. Two extreme cases are 
cited in illustration; others might be added. 

A certain problem case has exhibited the most eccentric 
combination of indubitably superior learning and of perform- 
ance which sometimes seems like that of a moron. At times he 
apparently cannot read at all, and at others he reads successfully 
rather difficult scientific material. He has been measured, diag- 
nosed, corrected, remedied—all with apparently little effect. 
Asked to write a composition on a set subject, he turns in a mass 


60 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


of gibberish. At almost the same time, asked to describe in writ- 
ing an occurrence which he has already graphically described in 
words, he turns in a composition fully up to his grade level. The 
I.Q. is somewhat above normal. The pupil is healthy and is nor- 
mal in his social reactions. He is perhaps simply an extreme 
type of the direct learner. He apparently lives so close to the 
world of reality that he not only resents the artificial school ex- 
ercise but can find no meaning in it whatsoever. The school 
exercise probably means as little to the expert lesson-learner as to 
him, but the lesson-learner can adjust himself with entire readi- 
ness to this artificial thing—he requires no meaning—but our 
problem cannot so adjust himself. In a school in which direct 
teaching has become almost universal the latter has ceased to 
be a problem. 

The second case is that of a pedagogical problem which has 
had time to come to full maturity and demonstrate success in 
life. In the high school, this pupil was practically a non-learner 
under the daily-lesson procedure. He came to be four years re- 
tarded and left school. And yet he has lived a conspicuously suc- 
cessful life in the very lines in which the high school was sup- 
posed to contribute. An utter failure in the school sciences, he 
became an inventor of mechanical devices of the highest order. 
Hopelessly inept in the algebra and geometry of the schoolroom, 
he came to spend his days in the realm of higher mathematics. 
Like the first case, his was apparently an instance of the extreme 
direct-learner type, so extreme that he could learn nothing at all 
from lessons. The long list of eminent men who were once school 
failures, cited by Swift in Mind in the Making, may, some of 
them, very well have been of this type. 

Can we doubt that the majority of pupils who learn only 
vaguely and uncertainly from the daily lesson are instances of 
the direct-learning type at various stages of adaptability? Can 
we doubt that both the transfer-type pupils and the lesson- 
learners are direct learners who are possessed of maximum 


THE PRODUCT OF LESSON-LEARNING 61 


adaptability and who adapt themselves, in the one instance well 
but uneconomically, and in the other perversely? 

It is not unreasonable to suppose that the direct-learner 
type is the chief contributor to those school failures who succeed 
well in after-life and whose success is viewed by the public as a 
reproach to the school. 

Altogether, we may conclude that the normal product of 
practice in lesson-learning is improvement in ability to get les- 
sons, and that lesson performance transfers to learning in the 
real units only casually and in a minority of instances. 

What is to be done about it? In the main, this whole volume 
is an attempt to answer the question in terms of the specific pro- 
cedure called for. Let us generalize our answer in the precept, 
abandon the lesson-learning and lesson-hearing theory of teach- 
ing, with its implications of ground-to-be-covered and passing 
grades, and substitute therefor the direct teaching of the real 
learning products, with tests applied to the identification of 
specific adaptations in the pupil and used primarily as bases of 
correction in pedagogical treatment rather than as bases of cred- 
iting the pupil with performance accomplished. An illustration 
of the application of the answer and of the normal result of di- 
rect teaching can be seen in the exhibit with which we bring the 
argument to a close. 

It will be recalled that the exhibit which we first studied was 
that of a laboratory course in Latin II. The data were derived 
from a series of tests run in the winter of 1920. Shortly after- 
ward, the teaching procedure was modified, in general conform- 
ity with the principles set forth later in our chapters on lan- 
guage-arts teaching. Home assignments, and even out-of-class 
assignments, were given up almost entirely. The classroom be- 
came a place of study and no daily recitations whatever were 
held. Study became purely practice in sight reading with such 
comments on syntactical usage as were needful. Table IV ex- 
hibits the results in terms of the same testing which was before 
used. The data are from a test run January 6, 1922, and they 


62 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


may be found in the bound work reports of the laboratory on file 
in the archives of the School of Education in the University of 
Chicago. 


TABLE IV 


EXHIBIT OF ABILITY AND LESSON SCORES, 
Latin II, 1922 





Achieve- ; ten 

Pupil | en Pupil Test, 

Pua xtines Coe Shon 100 a err eer ee 100 
Bia aaeaigen seni s 100 | eS pie ay Meal 100 
Gee SHEL ERE A, 97 OR eh erg yay en es 100 
Des ate Pat tones atte 93 | PER Oe ao" SRO 100 
By sya sikie ate Bi. g heck 93 OS oie bic! Seametwca Scatpbonaye 97 
Be so pre Sa etoile eetona 93 The sd int ia Roe este 97 
Gy eee es go BA LO ob ae 93 
| = Beep gee ee i go 1 OSU et er Ge: 93 
Lies ke... pee ames 87 Wns, vids wa beeen 93 
Joy Ses tet momineets 87 Cy ak RR PE ie godlesey 93 
) soe Arey Lay 2: 87 Oe old SAL eee 93 
1 PIAA WGA dy 8 Hop 87 Ki cok ues tebe niue abcde 93 
MGS aa ce ee ee 83 Siics Cyan ot teins oe 93 
Nils he FS sv a Ps 80 Ly Ree aa wee re go 
CCN etn ex oe creates 80 EE Wek Seem tas be ae go 
| PPR GE Sif PRY 1) Sel 80 "JE AIR Spee 90 
Ol tio wees ree alee 77 i ca k os «cs heen go 
Rico eae ear: a 1 re a. 90 
Siar Taare Ae 73 OR vais odeta vee 90 
TD sine Sate ere ere 67 oh eee 4 dice 5 eee 80 
[OS Say sek ae 63 Vin Ub thle ee eee 80 
V. dite Goceatcce stein ees 63 Us Se se esis ae 73 
Wiig cae hate 60 Wie ect nae 57 


Comparing the results of this test with the results of the 
same kind of test which was run in 1920 (see Table II), before 
the adoption of a direct teaching technique, we note in the first 
place that we have a range, in the achievement test of 1922, of 
60-100, while in 1920 the range was 9-96. The median pupil of 
1922 scored 87 and the median pupil of 1920 scored 39. It is of 
course conceivable that the second class group was of better 


THE PRODUCT OF LESSON-LEARNING 63 


ability than the first, or that the second teacher was a better 
practical technician than the first. There are no precise stand- 
ards by which we can settle the question. We know the pupils, 
however, and we know that both classes were composed of the 
typical constituency of the Latin curriculum in this particular 
school. We know the teachers, and we know that as technicians 
they were about on a par in terms of their ability to hold classes 
as measured by group-attention scores (see Part II). Such dif- 
ference as there was is in favor of the first teacher. The out- 
standing and conspicuous variable was the technique theory ap- 
plied. 

On the first test, the scores of two pupils were within a range 
of five points on achievement and lesson, respectively. On the 
second, Pupils A, B, C, D, F, H, J, L, and W are within a range 
of five points. On the first test, no pupil scores higher on aehieve- 
ment than on the lesson; on the second test, D and W show this 
characteristic. On the first test, two pupils or ro per cent show 
that they are little if at all dependent on lesson-learning; on the 
second test, nine pupils, or 39 per cent, show direct learning to 
this extent. 

On the first comparison, the two pupils whose scores are 
within a range of five points are the only ones whose scores are 
within a range of ten points. On the second comparison, in ad- 
dition to the pupils just enumerated, the scores of E, G, I, K, M, 
and U are within the ten-point range. On the first test, ro per 
cent of the pupils are within this measure of non-dependability 
on lessons; on the second, 65 per cent. 

On the first test, 70 per cent of the pupils are outside the 
range of twenty points’ difference. On the second test, none are 
in that class. 

Evidently the use of a technique calculated to develop di- 
rect learning of the true learning product has gone far. The 
process is not complete, but there are no cases left of extreme 
dependability upon lessons. 

The method which was thus used in the investigation of the 


64 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


problem of lesson-learning can evidently be used as a working 
part of the teacher’s technical procedure. From time to time, 
any teacher in any subject can devise tests of achievement, and, 
by comparing the results with those obtained from the use of the 
same test material as a lesson, can detect the lesson-learners and 
apply corrective treatment. 

The lesson-learning attitude once established in pupils be- 
comes one of the most baffling of all the elements of problem 
case work in later years. It is often so definite and characteristic 
that if we nickname it the ‘“what-do-I-do-next attitude” or the 
“that’s-what-it-says-in-the-book attitude,” we shall not go far 
wrong. It appears in those who must work under directions 
when the operator returns to his supervisor with the verdict, “TI 
have done just what you told me and it does not work,” never 
dreaming that directions or suggestions can seldom be anything 
more than helps which enable a human personality to react suc- 
cessfully upon his own task. Its prevalence in the world is indi- 
cated by the highly profitable returns from “‘fool-proof” devices. 

We cannot bring this chapter to a close without venturing a 
suggestion of what lesson-learning may have meant to the social 
controls. We see plainly that perhaps the majority have prob- 
ably never acquired more than the vague beginnings of learning, 
not enough to modify in any important way either their atti- 
tudes toward the world or their behavior in society. A formid- 
able proportion have acquired only the sheerest of pretensions. 
It is only too obvious that multitudes about us pursue lives 
which are tolerable only because social institutions hold them in 
restraint. At times, economic revolutions, or catastrophes such 
as the American Civil War or the world-war of 1914-18, re- 
lax the social controls. Large numbers of people then revert to 
the control of their actual instead of their spurious adaptations. 
Orgies of corruption, license, and perhaps crime become serious 
social phenomena. Writing of an older social life, a pagan poet 
and the greatest of the apostles alike gave expression to a tragic 


THE PRODUCT OF LESSON-LEARNING 65 


thought. We see the better course and acknowledge that it is 
the better; we follow the worse. In other words, our vision of 
truth is but a lesson learned. It is difficult to be too confident of 
the regenerative power of education in the complex of human 
affairs, if only the schoolmaster can learn to identify and impart 
the true learning products, in the place of the daily routine of 
lessons conned and performance scored. 


CHAPTER V 
APPRAISAL OF PUPIL PROGRESS 


have in the preceding chapters distinguished be- 
WV tween the real learning products and the procedure 
which is assumed to generate those products. We 
have used the term “mastery” to define the actual acquisition of 
the learning products by the pupil. We have surveyed, both on 
theoretical and on factual grounds, the outcome of the lesson- 
learning process in terms of real learning. We have seen that the 
assumption that the educative process is a matter of graduated 
stages, of ground-to-be-covered, and of performance to be meas- 
ured leads logically and inevitably to methods of evaluating 
pupil progress in which only casual account is taken of the legit- 
imate products of learning, and in which education is and must 
be constantly confused with procedure. We now invite the read- 
er, first, to a further critical study of formalism in its relations 
to the school’s appraisal of the pupil’s progress in his education- 
al development and the pupil’s understanding of the nature of 
his own education; and, second, to a constructive analysis of a 
more valid appraisal in terms of real learning. 

The whole body of administrative stereotypes which, as we 
have seen in chapter i, had its origin chiefly in uncritical accep- 
tation of the three historically fundamental schools, led by natu- 
ral evolutionary process to the evaluation of pupil progress in 
terms of the years which were assumed to belong to the three 
schools after they had become adjusted to one another in a se- 
rial relation—first elementary, then high school, then college. 

The eight grades of the elementary school seem to have fur- 
nished a convenient starting-point. A child is assumed to have 
acquired an elementary education when he has succeeded in at- 

66 


APPRAISAL OF PUPIL PROGRESS 67 


taining a passing grade on performance for eight successive 
years. 

In the early nineties of the last century the need of defining 
a high school became apparent. Hitherto, pretty much anything 
had been a high school which chose to call itself such. The au- 
thor has encountered schools which were denominated high 
schools on the naive ground that they were domiciled in the sec- 
ond stories of buildings. Conversely, he has been officially ad- 
vised by a state’s chief law officer that no school could be recog- 
nized as a high school within the meaning of ancient statutes, 
still unrepealed, unless it taught Latin and Greek. Manifestly, 
the need of definitions had become acute. Now reputable high 
schools and academies had very generally required four years 
of study prior to the award of the school’s diploma. Here would 
seem to be a sufficient ground of reckoning. Why not have four 
grades in the high school on top of the eight grades of the ele- 
mentary school? The solution did not turn out to be so simple. 
Apart from some sentimental reasons, there was the practical 
administrative plague of the elective system. How can you de- 
fine a school as consisting of four years and nothing more, if not 
all pupils pursue the same pathway through the school? Mani- 
festly some method of establishing equivalency of performance 
requirements satisfied must be found, if you were going to ad- 
here to the performance standard at all. Hence there was 
evolved a system of units, a unit being defined to be a single sub- 
ject pursued for a year. Largely by process of agreement in 
conference, the high school was standardized at approximately 
fifteen such units. Colleges then began to plan their admission 
requirements in terms of such units, but not all colleges required 
the same number. 

The history. of this stage in our institutional evolution in it- 
self furnishes considerable evidence that performance of tasks 
was the central consideration and indeed that the whole process 
of education was viewed as analogous to industrial production. 
For instance, many colleges for a long time refused to evaluate 


68 . THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


all units as mutually equivalent. The logic of the situation was 
performance and not learning. That being the case, it was evi- 
dent that some pupils would pursue the path of dalliance through 
a sequence of courses none of which required undue exertion, 
while the dutiful and the ambitious would follow the more ardu- 
ous pathways. In the end, the diploma would not mean the same 
thing or even equivalent things for any two students. Hence, an 
elaborate system of weights was set up. In substance, the appli- 
cant for admission to college was told, “If you took this course 
which is only half as ‘hard’ as that, then you must supplement 
the course which you elected in high school with another or 
others, in order that your total performance may be on a parity 
with that of your fellow who took the ‘hard’ course.” In the end, 
however, great associations of colleges and secondary schools 
settled the matter by agreement, and fifteen units became our 
most commonly accepted standard of high-school education, 
whatever individual colleges might set up as admission require- 
ments. 

It is unnecessary to trace the process through the college. 
It was in all essentials the same as that which took place in the 
high school. There was nothing in the situation to prevent the 
college using the units plan of appraisal just as the high school 
was doing. Instead, however, a similar but more intricate ma- 
chinery was set up and semester hours or student majors became 
the numerical system employed. The college, with entire con- 
sistency, blocked up as many easy pathways as it could, just as 
many colleges had refused to accept fifteen high-school units at 
face value. The student must perform acceptably if he were to 
stay in college. He must perform at a higher degree of accepta- 
bility if he were to receive the Bachelor’s degree. Hence course 
sequences were worked out and grade points, of one sort or an- 
other, were superimposed upon the course grades. In the end, a 
student is entitled to the college degree when he has performed 
acceptably to the extent of eight grades, plus fifteen units, plus 
approximately one hundred and twenty semester hours or thir- 


APPRAISAL OF PUPIL PROGRESS 69 


ty-six majors. Hence the educational currency dear to the heart 
of the registrar. That the term “currency” is not inaptly chosen 
can be seen by anybody who cares to sit down with the average 
high-school or college student, as the day of liquidation ap- 
proaches, and contemplate the process of balancing the books. 
Now, assuming for the sake of argument that every one of 
the thirty or more teachers whom the student must have en- 
countered has been efficient and conscientious and vigilant—and 
that is more than we have any right to expect under any form of 
procedure—is there any likelihood that he will have acquired 
mastery of the real learning products contemplated by his va- 
rious courses? The preceding chapter is a sufficient answer to 
the question. Is there any likelihood that he has been educated? 
There is no evidence that any theory of education, valid or non- 
valid, has been in control of the process. At the end, we have 
evidence that he has performed the set tasks acceptably, but no 
evidence whatsoever that the tasks have operated to modify in 
definite and significant ways the individual’s adaptation to his 
environment. We might expect that the student would leave 
school or college possessed of the idea that ‘‘schooling”’ and “‘ed- 
ucation” are synonymous terms and that he would carry with 
him such a conception and contribute the same to the popular 
understanding of the nature of education. There is ample evi- 
dence to be found in any higher institution, whether high school | 
or college, that such is indeed the view prevailingly held by that 
portion of the student body which gives any thought at all to the 
ultimate meaning of the school experience. The view is well il- 
lustrated by the reaction of a certain student to a college course 
in English literature. This young man had done his work in the 
course very well indeed, and was congratulated by an older 
friend, who expressed the expectation that the course in question 
would shape the reading of a lifetime. ‘‘Well,” rejoined the 
youth, “it is over with anyway. I have the credit, and, thank 
Heaven, I shall never have it to do again!” Again and again, do 
we have occasion to contemplate the following situation. A 


me THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


group of students is comparing notes with reference to their 
progress in a course or through the institution. This one has re- 
cently received a B, and he announces that he can now “rest 
up” since the grade assigned assures him an average grade of 
C and C is all he needs in order to receive “credit” for the 
course. Another has a worried look over his B for that puts him 
in jeopardy with reference to the “honors” which he covets. Sel- 
dom is the student found who dreams of education as a process 
of growth within himself, of which none can deprive him and for 
which he needs no “honor grades.” 

The actual educational situation is not infrequently reflected 
in the student code of ethics. In spite of the impending ven- 
geance of the authorities and in spite of the honor system, crib- 
bing and similar unethical performances go on. The offense is at 
the worst venial, malum prohibitum but not malum in se. Like 
the rest of us, the student is a good citizen in so far as he is in- 
wardly convinced of the sinful nature of certain acts. For other 
acts, his citizenship is strictly in proportion to the vigilance and 
efficiency of the police force. In the school, he is surrounded by 
unreality. All these marks and grades and credits are devices by 
which the faculty constrains him in a pathway which he travels 
only for the sake of a valuable unreality, namely, a high-school 
diploma or a college degree. If he can outwit the faculty, it 
logically follows that-he is efficient. If he is caught, why, he will 
“take his medicine” like the good sport he is. There is nothing 
in it which affects his personality wherein honor resides. 

So much for the theory of appraisal itself and its immediate 
educational implications. The theory once accepted and fol- 
lowed inevitably leads to certain conclusions touching the mat- 
ter of the content of the individual pupil’s schooling. If we once 
accept premises which of necessity imply evaluation in terms of 
performance rather than in terms of adaptations attained, and 
which imply appraisal of performance in terms of a count of 
credits, we are led to minimize the importance of what a pupil 
shall learn. If we add to this theory of appraisal the determina- 


APPRAISAL OF PUPIL PROGRESS 77 


tion of curriculum policy by the political weight of the several 
groups in the faculty and in the constituency, we arrive at a re- 
sult which is perhaps as far as possible from a scientific adjust- 
ment of the content of the schooling to the requirements of any 
valid theory of education. In practice, accordingly, it often hap- 
pens that the program of a given student during four years of 
high school is a weird mixture, almost wholly unrelated to the 
fundamental learning products which must form the ground- 
work of any successful adjustment of the individual to the world 
in which he must live. A common pupil program for four years 
of high school is: four units of lesson-learning English; four 
units of Latin; three units of mathematics; three units of one 
modern foreign language and two of another. Such a program is 
common but not typical. It is typical for students destined to a 
certain influential kind of undergraduate college and originating 
in families whose own educational tradition is of that sort. Even 
for the transfer type of student whom we have identified in the 
preceding chapter, there are at best not more than two or three 
units of the fundamental learning products which stand for ad- 
justment to environment and these are all English literature. 
There are three units of abstract thinking, of little consequence 
apart from application in the sciences. The remainder is made 
up of tool subjects entirely. Admittedly, this is an extreme case, 
amply to be verified, however, out of the catalogues of various 
colleges. Probably the most typical program would be one which 
substitutes for the four units of Latin and for one unit of Eng- 
lish in the preceding, two units of science, two units of history, 
and a single unit chosen from a field of possibilities—household 
aris, mechanical drawing, mechanic arts, economics, civics, and 
possibly some of the commercial subjects. So completely is the 
vital matter of content overlooked, in adherence to a lesson-per- 
formance theory of teaching and of education, that a student 
may readily pass through high school and subsequently through 
college with little or no training in those subjects which alone 
can provide him with an intelligent outlook on life. If the press 


72 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


occasionally furnishes us with an outbreak in which the incred- 
ibly ignorant spots in the intellectual equipment of the college 
graduate are exhibited, need we wonder? 

Out of premises in which graded learning and credit for per- 
formance are accepted as criteria of the educational growth of 
the pupil arises a third aspect of appraisal which has important 
implications. It may be denominated ‘“‘rank-in-class.” The the- 
ory that the passing grade is translatable into an acceptable 
evaluation of learning leads us into difficulties, for we have in 
that case no measure other than the teacher’s judgment of per- 
formance. What is acceptable performance and therefore en- 
titled to the passing grade? If we are judging mastery of a unit 
of learning, we have an absolute standard and we can examine 
evidence touching the issue whether the pupil has the unit or has 
it not. We may be mistaken in our judgment, but we are at least 
judging in terms of a fixed basis of comparison. Not so with per- 
formance judging; our only basis there is comparison of one 
pupil’s performance with that of another. It ceases to be a ques- 
tion of whether John and James have both learned, but rather a 
question of which of the twain has learned the better, or rather 
which has performed the better. In the end, the pupil body is 
thus distributed in terms of relative merit of performance; one 
end of the scale is honored and the other is cast into the pit. The 
principle is overlooked that we have not a shred of evidence that 
either end of the class has learned at all. 

Thus arises the stereotype of rank-in-class and the doctrine 
that a pupil’s education is to be judged, not by his actual devel- 
opment, but by comparison of his deeds with those of his fel- 
lows. Thus arises, too, the self-glorification of fond parents over 
the competitive qualities of their offspring and the bitter disap- 
pointment of others, not in their son’s failure to grow, but in his 
failure to surpass the neighbor’s son. Thus arises the popular 
conception of the highly educated man as the victor in a cultural 
jungle. 

Now rank is a method of social appraisal which we had fond- 


ns 


APPRAISAL OF PUPIL PROGRESS 73 


ly hoped that America had sloughed off, along with various other 
childish practices which feudalism bequeathed to Europe. 
Among people of common sense and breeding, it long ago gave 
rise to the term “snobbery.” To be sure, nothing is more certain 
than that people differ greatly among themselves, that some are 
good and some less good and some worthless, that some are able 
and competent and some are inept and inefficient. The genuine 
democrat of the progressive races in all ages and lands, however, 
has always recognized the principle that while you can judge a 
man for what he is and what he does you cannot judge him by 
assigning him a place in a graduated social scheme. It is further 
true that in the conduct of human enterprises, it is essential that 
some shall lead and direct while others follow, but a functional 
organization such as this is a widely different thing from a hier- 
archy of social status based on no functional values whatever. 
There must be, for instance, a superintendent of schools, and he 
should have large powers as such, but as soon as the superin- 
tendent and his wife begin to feel that his position gives the fam- 
ily a certain superior social status, the elements of decay become 
established. The compensatory mechanism is a commonplace of 
modern social psychology, and social rank is one of its evident 
manifestations. The individual who is not sure of himself seeks 
peace by asserting his superiority to somebody else. They who 
have not found themselves are unhappy until they have estab- 
lished the outward symptoms of complete superiority in their 
own social group or small town. Hence they build pretentious 
houses, adorn themselves with costly garments, and buy one 
more automobile than anybody else owns. Less-advanced socie- 
ties achieve approximate equilibrium through tables of prece- 
dence. The footman is better than the stable boy, the butler bet- 
ter than the footman, the marquis better than the earl, the king 
better than everybody else. It is to be noted in passing that most 
such societies are degradations from an original legitimate func- 
tional organization. The nobles were originally civil and mili- 


74 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


tary officers. The end of the road is caste, and caste is the 
ultimate expression of unreality and stagnation. 

The meat of the matter for our purposes is that rank is a 
crude method of appraising the individual’s social status. If an 
educational institution awards and sanctions rank, no matter 
how laudable its intentions may be, it simply creates the situa- 
tion which is appropriate to rank. The student body rapidly 
takes on the characteristics which can be measured in that way 
alone. Educational products themselves are lost to view. The 
evidence is illustrated by the following. 

A very common occurrence in school is a colloquy between 
a typical mark-getter and rank-chaser and a pupil who has ac- 
quired a genuine intellectual interest. The first contemplates the 
pursuits of the second with uncomprehending amazement. 
“Why do you do it?” he asks. “Oh,” replies the second, “I am 
just interested, that is all.” “But,” carefully explains the other, 
“don’t you understand that you will get no credit for it, it will 
get you nowhere?” The second has acquired a real educational 
product, the first has acquired nothing but a facility in outstrip- 
ping some of his fellows in a scheme which the school itself has 
set up. | 

Appraisal by rank in class is therefore badly calculated to 
identify and to measure the real educational product. Worse 
than that, it seems to have an essentially anti-educational ten- 
dency. Most of the envy, hatred, and malice of life, and much 
of the unhappiness, arise out of the primitive inclination of men 
and women to compare one another in terms of social status. 
And yet the appraisal by rank which the school often sets up in 
its classrooms must, in the nature of things, furnish the very 
seed ground for the growth of these fundamental social vices. 
In the place of inward satisfaction in growth attained, of which 
the individual can be certain, it substitutes the restless ambition 
to surpass one’s fellows. If the pupil succeeds, he has acquired 
only a false outlook on life. If he fails, and all but one must fail 
of complete satisfaction, his dissatisfaction is only too apt to dis- 


APPRAISAL OF PUPIL PROGRESS 70 


charge itself in envy, suspicion, and ungenerous hatred.. True, 
we can possibly secure the semblance of contentment by setting 
up as an ideal what may be called “educational sportsmanship.” 
But we shall be likely to succeed only in establishing a sup- 
pressed discontent which will break out later in antisocial atti- 
tudes and very possibly in abnormal behavior. We cannot build 
a democracy, not to say a Christian civilization, on such an edu- 
cational foundation. | 
A VALID METHOD 


We now turn to the other aspect of our problem and seek to 
analyze the foundations of a valid method of appraising the real 
learning products. For the complete working out of a theory of 
educational testing in details we must beg the reader’s indul- 
gence. That will have to wait for our discussion of “Operative 
Technique,” as applied to the different types of teaching, found 
in Part III. 

We revert to our discussion of the learning units and their 
manifestation in the pupil as genuine adaptations, as elements 
in his whole outlook on life and in his conduct as an individual. 
Any appropriate method of appraising pupil progress, then, 
must rest on a count of the true learning products which the pu- 
pil has attained and in which his mastery has been verified by 
the best evidential means at our command. 

Such being clearly the case, there is undoubtedly implied an 
analysis of the whole process of general education into the learn- 
ing units which are of necessity its content. Such an analysis 
would carry us far beyond the scope of this volume. After all, 
our discussion herein is concerned with teaching and not with 
the curriculum. Nor is such an undertaking essential in the pres- 
ent connection, for every school, up to and including the college, 
has its own curriculum made up of a content which the school 
conceives to be best fitted to the achievement of its purpose. 
The present problem is to effectuate that curriculum in the 
teaching procedure which is employed. A curriculum is nothing 
more than so much paper until it is taught. 


76 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


At the beginning of the secondary period, the issue is sim- 
ply, has the pupil the four major primary adaptations, not a 
matter of how many grades has he been promoted and not a 
question of how well he has done. If the teaching technique of 
the primary school, including proper corrective and remedial 
teaching, has been systematically and effectively focused on its 
own proper objectives, the pupil will have the primary adapta- 
tions, and all of them, or else he will have been positively identi- 
fied as a probable mental deficient. 

From the beginning of the secondary period to the end there- 
of, every curriculum subject can be analyzed into its essential 
unit learnings. We shall often have occasion to recur to this 
aspect of the matter in detail. Doubtless in any particular 
school the process will sometimes result in more or less recon- 
struction of its curriculum. Pupil progress becomes then a mat- 
ter of mastering the several units within the field of each curric- 
ulum subject studied. He does not study geography or United 
States history or French or algebra or English literature—he 
masters the learning units within each of these fields. In some 
fields there will be many units and in others, for instance the 
reading course in a foreign language, but one unit. The subject 
fields themselves cease to have any critical administrative mean- 
ing; they become simply convenient descriptive terms. Progress 
is appraised, not by a system of credits for courses, or even for 
units, but simply by recording the learning units mastered, bear- 
ing in mind that each unit stands, not only for significant knowl- 
edge which must be acquired, as for instance the notion of gravi- 
tation, but also for the inward change in attitude in the pupil 
which can be tested and verified. 

Education in the secondary period is concerned, however, 
not only with the adaptations which arise out of the use of book 
material but with others as well. 

It is concerned with the physical development of the pupil, 
and here progress is not in terms of the number of gymnasium or 
health courses which he has had but with actual growth both in 


ill “ i et ee ie 


APPRAISAL OF PUPIL PROGRESS 77 


normal physical development and in the health attitudes he has 
taken on. Gymnasium exercises and health talks may be the 
means by which growth is stimulated and controlled, but they 
are clearly not the growth itself. Here, again, analysis of the 
teaching objectives gives us the unit learnings to be mastered. 
Appraisal of progress consists in recording the achievement of 
unit learnings or steps in normal development. 

We are vitally concerned with the development of right con- 
duct in the pupil, that is to say, with his volitional and ethical 
evolution. Now here, as in the cases of physical development 
and the adaptations which are acquired from the book courses, 
it is perfectly possible to map out, at least to useful approxima- 
tions, the major units in which the normal volitional and ethical 
development consists. They are patent in our collections of case 
histories, and the principal units are exhibited and discussed in 
chapter xxi. Each of these steps in development is as capable 
of observation and verification on evidential grounds as are the 
unit learnings in algebra, or the development of taste in litera- 
ture, or the maintenance of the normal height-weight ratio in 
physical growth. The mastery notion applies. The pupil has 
either passed into the normal altruistic attitude of early adoles- 
cence or he has not. He has either come to practice willing 
obedience to constituted authority or he has not. Again, ap- 
praisal of progress consists in recording the unit adaptations 
which the pupil has made and for which we have evidential tok- 
ens. The contrasting method is an exhibit of traits in which dif- 
ferent teachers rate the pupil on a fivefold distribution. In the 
former, we are dealing with evidence of adaptation; in the lat- 
ter, with estimates of performance. In one, we are identifying 
steps in the pupil’s growth, which can be trusted to control his 
unconstrained behavior in the world; in the other, with only per- 
sonal views of the present situation. 

Thus we can at any point between the end of the primary 
period and the end of the secondary describe the pupil’s prog- 
ress but we cannot define the extent of his education. We can 


78 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


list on a card the unit learnings which the school curriculum 
implies and record the unit masteries in the case of a given pupil 
for which we think we have evidence. We can then present the 
card to the inquiring person as a description of present status 
for such interpretation as the latter may think warranted in the 
premises. There is doubtless always the temptation, which as- 
sails the administrator and it may be the student of education, 
with special force, to set up convenient levels within the secon- 
dary period and to attempt thus to define educational progress. 
To do so is to deceive one’s self, and we presently begin to think 
again in terms of administrative and investigational stereotypes 
instead of in terms of educational reality. Indeed, the reader 
must be warned that in reading the present volume he will fre- 
quently encounter such expressions as “elementary-school lev- 
el,” “high-school level,” “junior high school” or “senior high 
school” or “junior college level.” Such terms are used only as 
convenient descriptive phrases chiefly for the purpose of relat- 
ing our discussion to institutional arrangements with which we 
are all familiar. Elementary education, or high-school educa- 
tion, or college education are all, on our principles, merely col- 
loquial terms. Primary education and secondary education we 
can define. 

In the analysis of appraisal of pupil progress, we thus come 
to the end of the secondary period and to the end of general edu- 
cation in the technical, formal sense of the term “education.” 
Beyond that lie the university and the professional school. 

When the pupil has mastered the various units of learning 
which the school conceives to be the appropriate content of gen- 
eral education, and when the evidence shows that he has reached 
the point at which he can and will study without constraint, can 
and will use the adaptations which he has made in school in the 
intelligent formation of his opinions and in the conduct of life, 
then the pupil has reached educational maturity and the end of 
the secondary period. The school has a clear right to define him 
as an educated man, within the terms of its own understanding 
of the content of education. 


a Sn = 


CHAPTER VI 
OUTLINES OF AN APPROPRIATE TECHNIQUE 


: HE primary consideration, then, in any teaching enter- 
prise, whether it be a book course or the development of 


conduct or the care of the pupil’s physical well-being, is 
the identification of the learning units. As we have seen, these 
are likely to be hidden in the mass of assimilative material or 
school exercises out of which they are supposed to emerge. The 
unit is both the objective principle or art or value and the cor- 
responding subjective transformation in the pupil which results 
in a new attitude or special ability or skill. 

The units having been identified, the next problem is the 
technique of pedagogical attack. Here we apply what we shall 
call the “mastery formula”: Pre-test, teach, test the result, 
adapt procedure, teach and test again to the point of actual 
learning. It will be noted that this is precisely the procedure 
adopted by other practitioners who work in the field of organic 
adaptations. The physician, for instance, who undertakes the 
cure of a patient, first makes his diagnosis, then formulates and 
applies a treatment, then tests the results of his treatment, modi- 
fies treatment in accordance with his test results, and so on to 
success or failure. Even if he fails, the physician is eager to 
know why he failed. He does not merely dismiss the case with 
the verdict, ‘Failed to recover,” or, in performance terminology, 
“Failed to pass.” Again, the agriculturist in handling a crop 
first analyzes the market and the soil which he has available, 
formulates a procedure, applies his cultivation, tests growth, ap- 
plies correctives, and so on to the harvest. The scientific teacher 
compares with the agriculturist, the lesson-hearer with the peas- 
ant farmer. We refrain from drawing the parallel in the case of 
the physician. The most important difference between the teach- 


79 


80 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


er and these other practitioners is to be found in the fact that 
the latter enjoy the resources of well-developed sciences, while 
the teacher’s science is still in its infancy. 

There are few units, indeed, in the secondary school in the 
approach to which the pre-test can wisely be omitted. It serves 
two important purposes: first, it orients the teacher and gives 
him ground for intelligent approach to the particular problem 
before him; and, second, it tends to establish in the minds of the 
pupils a connection between prospective learning and present at- 
tainments. It may, in rare instances, disclose the fact that one or 
more pupils may be excused from presence in class during the 
study of the unit, on the ground that they have already acquired 
the adaptation for which the unit stands. Now and then a pupil 
may be found on the pre-test of the first unit, if there are several 
units, who reveals evidence that he need not take the course at 
all. This is likely to be the case in courses in English composi- 
tion especially. 

In practice, the orientation of the teacher is perhaps the 
matter of most importance. Teachers are prone to take specific 
preparation for a given unit or course for granted. It thus often 
happens, that, while the section is in general ready for the unit, 
there are details which, if left untaught, will create wasteful and 
perhaps fatal inhibitions. This is particularly true of the tech- 
nical vocabulary of a science. It is perhaps unnecessary to em- 
phasize the principle that the result of the pre-test is no part of 
the system of appraising pupil progress. Its office is purely to 
throw light on the teaching process, and to include its results in 
any average of marks, if such still exist, is of course pedagogical- 
ly absurd. 

With the teaching member of the mastery formula we have 
little to do at this point. Part III in its entirety deals with that 
factor. 

Nor is there needed extended comment on the teaching test. 
We shall have occasion to deal with the matter in detail later. 
Suffice it to emphasize the principle that the results of the testing 


OUTLINES OF APPROPRIATE TECHNIQUE 81 


member of the mastery formula are purely for the purpose of 
deciding: first, whether or not the teaching has in fact regis- 
tered and the teacher can now go on to the next step or the next 
unit; or, second, what modification or procedure is needed, as- 
suming that the test discloses that the teaching has not fully 
registered. The results are no part of the final appraisal of the 
pupil’s progress. To include them would be as absurd as it 
would be for the physician to submit an average of pulse, respi- 
ration, blood count, urine content, as his final evaluation of the 
extent of the patient’s recovery. In the case of both patient and 
pupil, it is the final condition alone which is significant. The test 
results may be way-marks as well as guides on the road to recov- 
ery or to mastery, but they are not themselves any part oi re- 
covery or of mastery. 

When the result of the teaching discloses non-learning in the 
class as a whole or in any significant number of pupils, there is 
first indicated due study of the meaning of the test results. 
Mere scoring a test will not suffice. Every set of such results is 
a body of phenomena which arose in some sequence of cause and 
effect. As such they have meaning, and the meaning can usually 
be found by the teacher who is actuated and guided by scientific 
motives. Putting the test results and the teacher’s recollection 
of the teaching procedure together, there should emerge a hy- 
pothesis touching the character and location of the fault in the 
teaching. The teaching is then redirected and the element is re- 
taught. Lest the term “teaching” should mislead the reader, we 
note that reteaching may very well at certain stages take the 
form of redirection of study. 

Now, it is exceedingly important that the teacher give to the 
results of teaching tests this serious study before reteaching. 
The routinist falls into the error of testing, scoring the result, 
and reteaching without surveying the ground. He may well re- 
peat this process four or five times before he makes his point 
register, with great waste of time, energy, and pupil interest, or 
may fail altogether and hastily conclude that a great share of 


82 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


the class are non-learners. Before reteaching at all, every effort 
should be made to find out what the trouble is. We recount here 
illustrations showing the kind of trouble which the test may dis- 
close. 

Perhaps the commonest cause of non-learning is poor atten- 
tion. The teacher finds that his teaching did not ‘“‘get across” 
and recalls that he paid little attention to the task of holding the 
class. He was so interested that day in the subject matter that 
he overlooked the pupils. Now, so sensitive is a class to the per- 
sonality of the teacher, in certain aspects of technique, that even 
a seat outside the line of the teacher’s gaze—in a front corner of 
a square recitation-room, for instance—will sometimes make the 
difference between learning and non-learning. The teacher can 
then be very confident that, if he recalls poor control, he has at 
least one probable reason for the poor results on the teaching 
test. 

It will sometimes happen that a teaching test shows that 
nearly everybody got half of an explanation and that very few 
got the other half. The author had such an experience not long 
before these lines were written. On reconsidering, he found that 
he had used in the second part of a lecture material which only a 
part of the class were qualified to receive. In such cases the cor- 
rection is obvious. 

In subjects like the languages, in which learning arises out 
of practice, the teaching test will frequently disclose as non- 
learners individuals who either are slow reactors or require un- 
usually long practice at a given level before the progress in 
learning sets in. The corrective procedure here implies resec- 
tioning the class after the slow learners have been positively 
identified.. It by no means follows, of course, that this is the only 
cause of non-learning in a language course. 

Not infrequently, in subjects like grammar, mathematics, 
and the sciences, the teacher ultimately finds that he is trying 
to teach an uneconomical or even an impossible unit. Commonly 
the unit is not extensive enough, or it may be a unit which cor- 


OUTLINES OF APPROPRIATE TECHNIQUE 83 


responds to no possible adaptation, in other words there is noth- 
ing to understand. In a certain case the unit selected was a 
somewhat narrow phase of indirect discourse. The test on both 
teaching and successive reteachings showed a very unsatisfac- 
tory state of learning. The unit itself was then expanded so as 
to include a much wider body of principles. The reteaching now 
cleared up the situation with all except a few pupils. Apparent- 
ly the pupils could not understand until they could see the unit 
as a whole, that is to say, the real unit. 

It may transpire from the evidence of the tests that the 
course itself is an impossible one. 

The foregoing illustrations are of course merely typical of 
what the teaching test may reveal and the appropriate correc- 
tive procedure. 

Such is direct teaching of the learning unit, or, on our prin- 
ciples, teaching as distinguished from lesson-learning in any of 
its forms. The essence of the matter is application of the mas- 
tery formula, and the root of the latter is the teaching test and 
reteaching. From the pupil’s point of view, the issue is, “I do 
not catch the idea, please repeat”’; or, perhaps, ‘Tell me where- 
in I am wrong, in order that I may correct myself.” 

Two questions are now naturally suggested: How many 
times should reteaching be done? For what proportion of pupil 
failures on a teaching test should the whole section be retaught? 

In general, reteaching should be done until mastery takes 
place. There is a pedagogical problem to be solved, and it is the 
teacher’s business to find the solution. The number of reteach- 
ings required is a measure of the teacher’s professional equip- 
ment and skill. Ordinarily, the teacher who is willing to study 
the problem will find that the number of reteachings required 
steadily diminishes as the course goes on. The teacher becomes 
better adjusted to the class and the pupils become better stu- 
dents. Nevertheless, the reteachings may keep tediously up, and 
after a time the problem becomes critical. There is then indi- 
cated a broader study of the whole situation. The teacher may 


84 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


well find it necessary to call into consultation one of his asso- 
ciates and the supervisory help of the principal’s office. A fault 
hitherto unnoticed by the teacher may be discovered. It may be 
found that the course has been unwisely placed in the program 
of study. It may be found that the class is, in fact, so heterogene- 
ous that it cannot be taught as a single section—a situation, by 
the way, which is almost certain to be encountered periodically 
in the graded system under the lesson-learning and passing- 
grade teaching procedure. Whatever is found should be found 
as matter of fact on evidential grounds and not as matter of 
mere guesswork. , 

Theoretically and ideally, whenever a pupil has learned, he 
should go on with his learning even though he be the only one in 
the section to do so. Practically, it does not altogether work out 
that way. Assuming that the section is reasonably homogeneous, 
that the pre-test has been properly administered and followed 
up, and that the teacher’s control of attention is adequate, the 
early teaching in a course is apt to disclose something like the 
following situation. On the teaching test, perhaps one-third of 
the class shows evidence of learning. On the retest, another third 
reaches mastery. On a second retest, all but two or three in a 
class section of thirty respond. Now, shall the first third sub- 
mit to reteaching twice and the second third once after they 
have responded to the test? The teacher’s best judgment will 
have to settle the matter, and we trust that subsequent chapters 
will more and more give ground for judgment. When as large 
a proportion as two-thirds fail to respond, it is worth while to 
verify the learning of the first third by reteaching and retest, 
and even a second round of reteaching. It not infrequently hap- 
pens that some of those who responded on the first test do not 
respond on the retest, but do respond on the second retest. 
Either the first test was not conclusive as a test or they made 
simply a fortunate response. Further, when the test gives room 
for qualitative differences in the response itself, the response of 
some of the last third is often better than that of the first third 


OUTLINES OF APPROPRIATE TECHNIQUE = 85 


on any of the tests. The fast learner is not always a sound 
learner, nor is the slow learner always a poor learner. 

The small remainder of the class are indicated for special 
individual treatment. On the next unit, one or more of them may 
pass out of this group and others may join it. Ordinarily, how- 
ever, something like 5 to 10 per cent, it may be, will segregate 
as non-learners and linger farther and farther behind the body 
of the class group as a whole. These soon become registered as 
“problem cases” and perhaps as “remedial cases.”’ They form 
an important subject of discussion in Part IV. It is essential 
to note here that they are positively identified as non-learners, 
instead of being simply cast to one side as people who failed to 
make a passing grade and futilely required to repeat the course. 
The teacher knows that they are not learning, and forms a tenta- 
tive hypothesis of the reason why they do not learn. They differ 
from the “corrective cases” who are for a time in and out of the 
lagging group but who eventually catch the stride and go on with 
the group. Since we shall have occasion frequently to use the 
terms which have been quoted, let us adopt them into our ter- 
minology and find for each a definite meaning in the following 
manner. 

A problem case is a pupil who is so far from responding to 
the routine instruction to which the class group as a whole re- 
sponds that he requires special individual study and treatment. 

The problem case is a corrective case when the difficulty is 
not such as to make necessary segregation from the group. 

The problem case is a remedial case when the difficulty does 
not respond to corrective measures within the class group. In 
such cases, the school must set up an organization for special 
study and special remedial treatment. Such treatment may go 
on within the school or it may be necessary to invoke outside 
agencies. A common-enough cause of remedial cases is a history 
of non-mastery in the earlier school life. The pupil does not 
learn simply because he has not the ideas and the thinking meth- 
ods which are essential to learning. For such the school sets up 


86 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


a group or groups for correcting this malady in the learning 
process. In another case, the cause is identified as defective 
vision or hearing. The pupil is sent to the appropriate specialist. 
In a third case, the cause is found to be seriously defective nu- 
trition, and it then may be necessary to find means for a long 
course of medical treatment. Finally, careful working out of the 
case and family history may disclose that the pupil is indeed a 
mental defective, and in that case he is sent out of school al- 
together. 

A little reflection will make it clear that the number of prob- 
lem cases will be reduced year by year in proportion as the the- 
ory of teaching in the school system as a whole is successfully 
reduced to a systematic basis, in the place of the lesson-hearing 
routine. 

What shall we do with the really superior student, the pupil 
who has native gifts and he who through fortunate experience 
has acquired proficiency in the art of study? Shall we keep him 
waiting throughout the tedious process of reteaching? 

In the first place, as we have seen, it often happens, espe- 
clally in the lower levels of the secondary school, that the supe- 
rior student greatly profits by reteaching. The superiority of 
bright pupils is very apt to consist rather in mere intellectual 
smartness than in solid qualities. Not infrequently what this 
type of pupil most needs is the discipline of learning to ‘“‘sweat 
out” thoroughly a piece of learning which his brightness enables 
him to acquire rapidly but superficially. We have further seen 
that when we apply the mastery formula the pupils who re- 
spond to the teaching test are not invariably those who respond 
to the first retest. 

Again, even those who do not respond until the second retest 
on an early unit are not infrequently those who eventually be- 
come the superior students. In a systematic laboratory test of 
pupil progress, day by day until fifty days had gone by, with no 
corrective treatment, the most striking disclosures turned out to 
be the extent to which the pupils shifted places in progress from 


OUTLINES OF APPROPRIATE TECHNIQUE 87 


day to day, the frequency with which the slow learner was a sure 
learner, and the lack of correlation between the mental-bright- 
ness scale and rate of learning.’ Finally, even rather obstinate 
remedial cases are sometimes corrected and become identified 
with the superior student group. 

Nevertheless, certain pupils do develop superior study ca- 
pacities as unmistakably as some of the problem cases become 
identified as non-learners. 

In some instances, we may very easily find that their supe- 
riority consists mainly in the fact that they do not need the 
course. They have already acquired all or nearly all of the adap- 
tations which the course contemplates. They may be released 
from class work, perhaps called to report independently on a 
few elements still needed, and assigned to another course. The 
following is a case in illustration. In a certain college, all Sopho- 
mores were required to pursue elementary courses in physics 
and chemistry. Because the majority of students were found to 
have no adequate foundation for the courses, a class was treated 
as it would properly be treated if no student had such prepara- 
tion. It so happened that several students would be found each 
year who in fact had all the learning which the courses contem- 
plated and more. Naturally they at once became conspicuous 
as superior students and in the routine of appraisal by rank in 
class were credited with an element of superiority which they 
did not possess. In terms of real learning products, their per- 
sonalities were unfavorably affected in that they were given an 
utterly false sense of their intellectual attainments, time was 
wasted which should have been devoted to courses of which they 
stood in great need, and to some extent the process of general 
education was needlessly prolonged. 

In some courses, particularly in language, in which the as- 
similative experience is a series of exercises, the pupil may be 
transferred to a more advanced section. 


*See Beauchamp, Studies in Secondary Education, Vol. II, “Supplementary 
Educational Monographs.” Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1925. 


88 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


In the majority of cases, however, the supplementary proj- 
ect is the most useful recourse. For each unit, an ample series of 
such projects is kept before the class and each pupil is allowed 
to select. Some may not select at all, and this has an important 
significance. Some work at a single supplementary project dur- 
ing a large part of the year. Some work out several such during 
the year. Thus the superior pupil validates his superiority, not 
by rank in class, but by the acquisition of additional masteries. 
It is sometimes objected that this is not “fair” to the superior 
pupil, since it requires him to do more than others do. The ob- 
jection is of course purely an instance of the performance stereo- 
type at work and the commercial view of education. If educa- 
tion is a matter of contract between pupil and school in which 
the pupil does certain work in consideration of credits and an 
ultimate diploma which the school covenants to award, then the 
objection holds. If education is conceived as a process of supe- 
rior adjustment, then the supplementary project is a rare oppor- 
tunity to the superior student, on the one hand, and evidence to 
the teacher of growth toward intellectual self-dependence, on 
the other. 

Now, the whole theory of systematic teaching rests upon the 
mastery formula and its application. It does not guarantee suc- 
cess to all teachers nor to any teacher for all pupils; but it does 
furnish a method by which such progress as is made can be real 
progress, and it furnishes a method by which the individual pu- 
pil can be duly given that consideration to which he is entitled 
by a society which brought him into the world without his will 
or wish. More than that even, it gives us a theory of teaching, 
on the basis of which may be developed actual individual self- 
dependence, in brief, citizens who are capable of thinking for 
themselves in the place of citizens who merely assert the right to 
think for themselves. 

We must now turn to the types of teaching found in the 
school. 


OUTLINES OF APPROPRIATE TECHNIQUE 89 


TYPES OF TEACHING 


Most theories of teaching have been founded on the assump- 
tion that all teaching is one, that a theory of technique can be 
found which is equally applicable to all subjects found in the 
school. In a sense this is true, for there are certain laws which 
apply in one form or another to all forms of learning. Among 
these are the principle of apperceptive approach, the principle 
of motivation, the law of initial diffuse movements, the canon of 
the concrete before the abstract. In the theory which we here 
advocate, we make large use of the principle that all real learn- 
ing, except the learning of skills, is in the form of adaptations in 
the individual. Nevertheless, a workable theory of teaching 
must take into account the fact that the psychology of the learn- 
ing process, the nature of the essential objectives sought, and 
consequently the teaching process itself, all differ in important 
details as we go from one subject to another in the secondary 
school. We can, however, group all the subjects taught in the 
field of general education, and indeed in the field of vocational 
education so long as it is at the secondary level, into five differ- 
ent types, which characteristically differ among themselves in 
the nature of their objectives and in the psychology of the learn- 
ing process. 

The first is that which we shall denominate the science 
type. The objectives here are adaptations which are in form 
understandings of principles or processes in the relation of cause 
and effect. The method of learning is a process of reflection and 
rationalization. The product is an intelligent attitude toward 
some aspect of the environment or of a science. The schoolroom 
subjects which in the main classify under this type are mathe- 
matics; the grammars of both the vernacular and non-vernacu- 
lar languages; the principles of ethics and logic; the physical, 
biological, and social sciences, including history; the theory of 
music and the other fine arts; such courses in household arts as 
home management and home economics; such courses in com- 
merce as transportation and commercial law; and, in short, 


go THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


courses in any field in which the learning units are primarily 
understanding or rationalization. This type is one of the three 
fundamental types in which adjustment in the form of new atti- 
tudes takes place. 

The second of the three fundamental types is what we shall 
call the appreciation type. The learning units here are in the 
form of adaptations in terms of which are valued those products 
of civilization which are and have been contributed by the fine 
arts, by religion, and by the best examples of moral behavior. 
Within this field are also found those learnings which are ex- 
pressed in attitudes toward conduct. The adaptations may im- 
ply enjoyment or they may imply some form of suffering, but 
they always imply willing devotion. Psychologically, the type is 
concerned with the affective side of man’s nature. Now the ma- 
terials with which this type has to deal and its products are 
sometimes put to critical evaluation by process of rationaliza- 
tion. Literature is critically studied for the purpose of discover- 
ing what are the qualities which make it literature. Religious 
beliefs are subjected to scientific study and doctrinal appraisal. 
The standards of moral behavior are traced in their evolution- 
ary developments and attempts are made to separate that which 
is valuable from that which is worthless. As soon, however, as 
it is deemed desirable to set up a course dealing with this aspect 
of the subjects which belong to the appreciation type, that 
course goes back under the science type. It can be taught under 
the technique appropriate to the science type; it cannot be 
taught under that which belongs to the appreciation type. 

The third of the types out of which arise the fundamental 
adjustments to environment we shall call the practical-arts 
type. The objectives here are adaptations which lead to the 
intelligent manipulation of appliances and molding of materials. 
The learning process is specifically different from that required 
by other types and therefore the type has its own specific opera- 
tive technique. There are included here most shop courses in the 
mechanical arts; such courses in household arts as cooking, 


OUTLINES OF APPROPRIATE TECHNIQUE ox 


sewing, and dressmaking; such courses as drawing, painting, 
and the plastic arts. 

Other courses which are ordinarily associated with these, 
and for which the same school departments are ordinarily re- 
sponsible, must be managed under other types, according as the 
objectives and the learning process dictate. A course in applied 
electricity, for instance, may be offered by the mechanic-arts 
department. It must be taught according to the principles of the 
science type. The household-arts department commonly offers 
courses in home management and in home economics. If the 
courses are to have a valid intellectual foundation they will need 
to be taught according to science-type principles. On the other 
hand, the same department offers courses in household art. 
Here, the objective sought is in the form of aesthetic adaptation, 
and the principles of the appreciation technique must be in- 
voked. 

On the other hand, the teacher of physics, chemistry, or 
biology, especially at the upper levels of the secondary school, 
has occasion to use the appropriate laboratory facilities. There 
is implied the skilful manipulation of appliances. The labora- 
tory aspect of these sciences frequently fails as a serviceable 
part of the study process because the student has not the requi- 
site manipulatory skill. The essential teaching process involved 
in these sciences is that of the science type. Nevertheless, the 
teacher who expects to make effective pedagogical use of the lab- 
oratory must turn from time to time to practical-arts principles 
in order to develop the capacity to use effectively the laboratory 
apparatus. 

Again, the teacher who has to do with the use of drawing. 
clay-modeling, and the like, for the development of appreciation 
of artistic values is chasing a pedagogical will-o’-the-wisp unless 
he is content to utilize practical-arts principles for the develop- 
ment of some skill in manipulation before expecting the aes- 
thetic adaptations to arise. Learning to draw or to manipulate 
color so that the result will express a certain mental content is 


92 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


one thing; the refinement of aesthetic judgment is quite another. 
Conversely, at some of the higher levels, creative artistic per- 
formance is undoubtedly a powerful experiential factor in the 
development of the more refined aesthetic adaptations. 

The types which have thus been enumerated and character- 
ized are fundamental in the sense that out of them arise the 
adaptations which make up the educative process. The form of 
teaching which is of primary importance, however, is that which 
we shall call the language-arts type—of primary importance 
because out of it arise the adaptations through which access is 
had to most of the materials of learning. It is the type through 
which the use of spoken and written discourse is learned, but it 
is far from being limited to the learning of language. In general, 
it applies to the learning of any method of receiving or express- 
ing thought or feeling in the form of continuous discourse. The 
infant’s learning to talk is an example of language-arts learning. 
Learning to read and write the vernacular are other examples. 
Learning English composition, the use of foreign language, 
stenography, are still others. The learning of musical expres- 
sion, either through the medium of the voice or through that of 
instrumentation, is also subject to the principles of the language- 
arts type. The essence of the type is some form of running dis- 
course. Thought and feeling are expressed in other ways, for 
instance through scientific formulas, on the one hand, or through 
the pictorial and plastic arts, on the other; but in these cases 
there is no discourse element involved. 

In this type as in the others, we find associated elements of 
learning which do not conform to the type. In the learning of 
languages, for instance, it is commonly necessary to learn the 
grammatical structure as well as the discourse use, and the two 
cannot be learned simultaneously, much less through the same 
form of teaching or the same learning process. The discourse 
use is a language-arts type; the grammar must be learned on 
science-type principles. 


OUTLINES OF APPROPRIATE TECHNIQUE 93 


Similarly, in the discourse teaching itself, we frequently en- 
counter situations in which a different type of teaching must 
be summoned to our aid. In the teaching of a foreign language 
such as French, for instance, the process of vocalization fre- 
quently calls for use of the principles of the pure-practice type 
discussed below. In teaching the use of some musical instru- 
ments, the point is soon reached at which the pupil is obliged to 
acquire certain neuro-muscular facilities which must also be 
learned by pure practice. 

There remains a field of learning, commonly found in the 
secondary school, in which the objectives are in the form of au- 
tomatic facility, and the learning process is pure repetition until 
the adaptation sought becomes established. To this field we 
apply the term, the pure-practice type. To be sure, all learn- 
ing implies practice. In the science and appreciation types we 
shall find long experiential practice with assimilative material. 
In the practical-arts type, assimilative practice with appliances 
and materials is essential. In the language-arts type, the learn- 
ing process is little more than practice with discourse of one 
form or another. In all of these, however, higher mental content 
is involved. In the first three, reflection is of the essence of the 
learning process, and, while reflection is more or less fatal to 
the learning process in the language-arts learning, still it is the 
expression of thought or feeling which is being learned. In pure 
practice, however, there is no thought content whatever included 
in the learning process itself, although the objective may, in 
some cases, be the automatizing of certain products of learning 
which are in themselves content in the mind. 

We may distinguish three subtypes: 

The first of these is that field in which a new special ability 
is gained by pure practice. Typical of this field is the learning 
of the primitive neuro-muscular adjustments, such as walking, 
swimming, skating, and the like. In the secondary school, the 
best illustrations are perhaps the training of the vocal organs 


94 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


for the purposes of foreign language and vocal music. Finger 
exercises in musical instrumentation also conform to this sub- 
type. 

The second of the subtypes has for its objective the fixing 
in mind of elements which are constant in character and which 
require no adjustment to the content in which they are from 
time to time found. Two times two is always four, anywhere in 
the world in any possible content. M-a-n always spells “man,” 
but the meaning of m-a-n differs materially according to the con- 
text in which it is found. The spelling can be learned on pure- 
practice principles; the meaning grows out of language-arts 
learning. The outstanding illustrations of the subtype are of 
course the tables in arithmetic and spelling. 

The third subtype has for its objective the fixation of con- 
venient formal elements which have been developed through an- 
other type, usually the science or the practical arts. For in- 
stance, the formula for distance traveled by a moving body un- 
der constant acceleration will be an element in an adaptation 
mastered under the science type, and it is worthless to the edu- 
cated intelligence unless it has been so mastered. Ordinarily, 
the formula will be recalled without great difficulty by anybody 
who has once really learned the principles involved, but it is 
desirable so to automatize such elements that they are recalled 
without the intervention of the reflective process. Much the 
same need exists in the case of well-worded rules, in mathemat- 
ics and grammar especially. Here are again cases in which when 
certain adaptations of the science or practical-arts types have 
once been mastered, it is convenient in subsequent economical 
learning to have verbal statements so automatized that the pre- 
vious learning is made rapidly available. 

Some of the older schools made good use of this third sub- 
type and thereby sometimes contributed a certain efficiency to 
the study processes which was of the greatest convenience. 
They were very likely to neglect, however, to establish the fun- 





OUTLINES OF APPROPRIATE TECHNIQUE = 95 


damental adaptation for which the rule or formula stood and 
thereby set up the type of learning popularly known as “par- 
roting.” 

The characteristic and most searching test of the pure-prac- 
tice adaptation is ability to use the power to which it corre- 
sponds while something else is focal in consciousness. For in- 
stance, no pupil has acquired an effective use of the multiplica- 
tion table unless he can use it correctly while thinking of the 
conditions of the problem to the solution of which the table is in 
part applied. Similarly, nobody can spell efficiently unless he 
can use words subconsciously in their correct form. 

It would be of little consequence to enumerate these differ- 
ent types of teaching, if to do so were merely to set up a con- 
venient form of classification. Such, however, is not the case. 
Each type stands for a form of learning and consequently for a 
form of teaching technique which is appropriate to the specific 
objectives within the type and to no others. A language-arts 
objective cannot be learned under the principles appropriate to 
the science type. Nor can a science-type objective be acquired 
under the principles of pure practice. 

There is perhaps no single factor so commonly responsible 
for non-mastery as persistent attempts to achieve a given learn- 
ing product under the wrong type of technique. In many 
schools, practically the only type employed is the science type. 
That is to say, the attempt is made to reduce everything to terms 
of understanding or rationalization. While the actual outcome 
is greatly obscured by the lesson-learning theory of instruction, 
the actual product, as far as there ever is an actual product at 
all, is always only that which can be attained under the type of 
teaching used. No better example can be found than the result 
of attempting to teach discourse under the science type. The 
outcome is understanding of language structure and ability to 
decipher discourse but not ability to read. Similarly, the at- 
tempt to develop appreciation of literary values under the sci- 
ence type may lead to understanding of the conditions under 


96 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


which literature is produced, but it never results, except casual- 
ly, in a taste for that kind of reading. 

On the other hand, failure to note the significance of differ- 
ence in types of learning and teaching very often leads to as- 
sembling incongruous elements in the same course or sequence. 
Perhaps our best illustration is in the field of English. In courses 
or parts of courses offered by the English department, there are 
at least four different types of teaching. Grammar is a science- 
type subject. Literature belongs clearly to the appreciation 
type. Composition is a language art, and spelling is most effec- 
tively learned on pure-practice principles. Grammar is pedagog- 
ically as different from literature as is algebra different from 
sportsmanship. The fact that all these subjects are logically 
classifiable as English is of little moment in comparison with 
the fact that pedagogically they are of four different kindred. 
Further, the teacher who is well adapted to instruction in gram- 
mar is apt to be wholly unadapted to successful teaching in lit- 
erature. As we shall have occasion to see later, composition as a 
language-arts subject is most effectively taught as a medium of 
expression in learning science-type subjects. Now, the effect of 
herding all these subjects together without discrimination is, as 
we have seen, to attempt to teach them all under the science 
type. The result is non-mastery and waste. 

Closely related to our consideration of the types of teaching, 
is a needful consideration of the non-teachable material which 
has found its way into the textbooks which have been con- 
structed to meet the requirements of the ground-to-be-covered 
or information theory of education. The material in question is 
non-teachable because it bears no relation to the development of 
understandings, appreciations, or abilities in the pupil. It does 
not correspond to any adaptations as such, nor is it utilizable as 
assimilative material. To coin an expression, it is mere ‘‘educa- 
tional journalism.” 

A standard text in chemistry much used in the secondary 
school, both high school and college, after developing the funda- 


OUTLINES OF APPROPRIATE TECHNIQUE 97 


mental chemical principles, devotes nearly one-fourth of its 
pages to a multitude of short paragraphs on various aspects of 
metallurgy, the rare earths, etc. If the material were really 
teachable, it would correspond to several advanced specialized 
courses. As it is, there is no body of principles to be mastered, 
and, if there were such, there is not assimilative material enough 
to make the learning of the principles anything more than a 
memoriter exercise. In contrast with this volume is a standard 
text in physics. In a typical chapter, that on the unit ‘Induced 
Currents” (the authors have, by the way, used here a teaching 
unit and not merely a topic), something over one-half the con- 
tent is devoted to description of the practical appliances which 
illustrate the unit; but in every case the application of the unit 
is traced. Hence, these pages become valuable assimilative ma- 
terial. The student can utilize their content as experience out of 
which the fundamental adaptation arises, and in so doing the 
appliances themselves become a part of his final intellectual 
equipment. 

Perhaps the most striking example of non-teachable mate- 
rial is to be found in the older texts in history. Nearly all of 
them were made up of this sort of content from beginning to 
end. They were chronicles of a meager sort but not histories. 
They recorded events in chronological order of occurrence but 
they failed utterly as a class to interpret the past as an intelli- 
gible evolutionary process. There was nothing to be learned 
because there was nothing to be understood. They were much 
less valuable than a reasonably veracious and well-written his- 
torical novel or drama because they never had the literary qual- 
ity which creates a gripping interest and which makes the mere 
story of the past useful for appreciation values. A typical text in 
United States history, for instance, would narrate the long series 
of events which together make up the topic “Discovery and 
Colonization,” but it would utterly fail to depict discovery and 
colonization as the intelligible outcome of economic, political, 
and religious causation. The normal outcome would be a tedious 


98 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


and scrappy memorization of the accounts of insignificant voy- 
ages and of equally meaningless futile attempts at colonization, 
unintelligible and soon forgotten. Later in the book would ap- 
pear a meager rehearsal of the campaigns of the Revolutionary 
War, too meager to capture the attention as examples of heroic 
devotion; the story of presidential administrations down to the 
Civil War; then another excursion into the field of military 
science; and, finally, an unintelligible newspaper account under 
some such caption as “The Wonderful Progress Following the 
War.” Such great epics as “The Critical Period,” ‘““The Indus- 
trial Revolution,” “The Winning of the West,” “The Slavery 
Issue,” and ‘‘Foreign Relations” were untouched save as the pu- 
pil of rare intelligence might by chance see a meaning in the 
succession of numbered short paragraphs with which his book 
was filled. 

The typical text in geography was almost if not quite as bad 
in this respect as the history texts. 

Still another illustration can be found in many of the Eng- 
lish and non-vernacular grammars. The lengths to which the 
logician who is devoted to the deductive method can go have 
often been exhibited in accounts of the follies of the later medi- 
eval Schoolmen. Much the same sort of thing is found in the 
classifications which not very ancient writers of school texts in 
English grammar have incorporated in their books. Such con- 
ceptions as the “copulative” and “‘substantive” uses of the verb, 
the ‘“‘objective” and “‘subjective” uses of the possessive case, 
may serve the purposes of refined analysis of the structure of 
the language, but they are not teachable in the secondary school 
for the reason that they correspond to no adaptation in the pupil. 
He cannot use them in criticizing his own use of the language, 
as he can use, for instance, the principles of agreement between 
the sentence subject and its verb. These non-teachable distinc- 
tions can be memorized but not ordinarily learned. 

The common denominator of all the non-teachable material 
which we have thus far discussed is found in the principle that it 


————————— ee 


OUTLINES OF APPROPRIATE TECHNIQUE 99 


either cannot be organized into units or is incapable of serving 
as assimilative material for units which might be organized. 
Much of it makes interesting reading, just as do the contents of 
the library shelves or the columns of the daily newspaper or the 
periodical magazine, but it does not require the intervention of 
the teacher and the school. 

In truth, the number of learning units in the complete ho- 
rizon of the field of general education which require teaching is 
surprisingly small, because the round of significant aspects of 
the environment is, after all, itself small. The sum of human 
knowledge on the other hand, is too vast for the comprehension 
of any human being. The objective of teaching in the school is 
not only adjustment but adaptability, not only putting the youth 
in intelligent contact with the world as it is but providing him 
with the cultural tools with which he can and will read the 
changing face of life. It is pedagogical waste, therefore, to use 
teaching time and curriculum space for the schooling of the pu- 
pil in what he can learn by himself, and especially in what can 
be learned but not taught. Still worse, it would seem to be edu- 
cational failure outright to compromise and put the student in 
but partial and lamely specialized contact with the world in 
which he must live under the mistaken theory that education 
and knowledge are synonymous terms. 


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DAIS UelL 
CONTROL TECHNIQUE 


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CHAPTER VII 
ESTABLISHING THE LEARNING SITUATION 


HE foundation of any systematic technique of teaching 
must obviously be the establishment of a condition in 


the class group, and in the attitudes of the individual 
pupils who make up the group, in which the adaptations implied 
by the objectives of teaching become possible—one in which 
teaching can register. We shall call such a condition the learn- 
ing situation. The major elements in the learning situation are 
motivation and attention. The two elements seem to be mu- 
tually related. There is not likely to arise a sustained attention, 
apart from the establishment of motivation, and conversely no 
real motivation is possible without the development of capacity 
for voluntary attention to the subject matter of teaching and 
study. 

A long time ago, students of the educative process came to 
recognize the principle that no real learning takes place apart 
from that sense of value which is commonly called “interest.” 
Interest, in the meaning which educators have always given to 
the term, implies an emotional condition with which pleasure 
may or may not be associated. It frequently arouses in the indi- 
vidual willing devotion to toil and hardship and sometimes to 
experiences which are in themselves the reverse of pleasurable. 
The doctrine has often been perverted by teachers until it is 
sometimes made to mean little more than amusement or enter- 
tainment. The arousing of genuine interest is the polar opposite 
of ‘making a subject interesting.” 

The course which an individual’s learning will take when he 
has been released from the constraint of the schoolroom will de- 
pend upon the character and extent of his genuine interests. If 
he has acquired no sustaining interests, the teaching to which he 


103 


104 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


has been exposed will have failed in its principal objective. If 
he has become educated in the process of schooling, the fact of 
his education will be manifested in his willing pursuit of the in- 
terests implied by the curriculum and the teaching of the school. 

As applied to the mastery of the objectives of any given 
course in the secondary school, the doctrine of interest requires 
the establishment of what is called in current pedagogical ter- 
minology ‘“‘motivation,” that is, a desire to learn. It further re- 
quires that such motivation shall not only be sustained but shall 
increase in intensity as the ‘learning process goes on. A pupil 
studying under the influence of powerful motivation exhibits a 
characteristic type of attention to which we shall apply the term 
absorption. Attention is sustained over long periods with only 
occasional and momentary intermissions. If the refined instru- 
mentation of the psychologist could be used, we should doubt- 
less find that even such attention as this is subject to pronounced 
fluctuation, but, for all practical schoolroom purposes, it is suffi- 
cient to note this evident absorption which is characteristic of 
study under strong motivation. 

Now, if all learning had its own initial appeal, motivation 
would take care of itself. Much of the learning of the school is 
indeed for many pupils what we may call “self-motivated,” and 
it is no less learning for that reason. But many of the essential 
elements of learning are not initially appealing to all pupils, and 
perhaps some elements lack this quality entirely. It is conceiv- 
able that the program of study might be so skilfully arranged 
and teaching so aptly applied that all normal pupils would grow 
from interest into interest and spend their school days in a de- 
lightful career of self-motivated studies. Such an ideal school 
would, however, be useless unless it were the introduction to a 
self-motivated world. Quite the contrary, the world in which we 
have to live and find our happiness is full of duties and opportu- 
. nities which are far from initially interesting, and the individual 
who has learned to react only to that which is self-motivated 
becomes a flabby incompetent in the world of realities. 


ESTABLISHING THE LEARNING SITUATION 105 


Hence, from an early period in school life, one of the major 
obligations of the school is to train the pupil into the capacity 
of voluntary application to learning which is not in itself initial- 
ly interesting. A pupil so trained becomes capable of developing 
interest, and consequently sustaining motivation, in most of the 
learning which a well-ordered school system sets before him. 
After a period, longer or shorter as the case may be, the remote 
initial motivation founded only on a sense of duty and voluntary 
application, in many cases but not all, becomes transformed into 
real, immediate, and sustaining motivation as the subject mat- 
ter has opportunity to yield its inherent interest. The youth 
who has become convinced of this principle and has learned to 
apply it has taken a fundamentally important step on the path- 
way to volitional maturity. “In many cases but not all,” for not 
all subject matter placed before the pupil and taught never so 
skilfully and pursued by the pupil never so faithfully is capable 
of arousing interest in itself. It may be wrongly placed in the 
pupil’s program of studies, its interest may be incompatible with 
existing interest, or there may be other inhibitions—some of 
them removable and others not. The fair presumption for 
teacher and pupil alike, however, is that the subject matter is 
normal in this respect and capable of eventually setting up its 
own motivation. The opposite attitude leads inevitably little by 
little to educational self-indulgence and “soft pedagogy.” 

Sustaining motivation arising out of genuine interest is a 
very intimate relationship between subject matter and the learn- 
er, and it is obviously the only form which can be depended 
upon as an element of the ultimate learning products, namely, 
abiding and general intellectual interest and educational self- 
dependence. The school in its devotion to lesson-learning and 
ground-to-be-covered not infrequently sets up spurious motiva- 
tion, that is, motivation calculated to stimulate the pupil merely 
in the direction of the successful performance of tasks. The il- 
lustrations which will occur to the reader are the passing-grade 
theory of administrative technique, rank-in-class founded upon 


106 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


artificial marks and grades, and various forms of prizes, honors, 
and the like. Even the work of the teacher who has the clearest 
educational insight and the best pedagogical skill is frequently 
handicapped, if not negatived, by the spurious motivation set up 
by the misdirected efforts of well-meaning but unwise parents 
and administrative systems. No doubt such spurious motivation 
occasionally gives rise to genuine and sustaining motivation. 
Such is very probably the case with the transfer type which we 
identified in our study of lesson-learning. Nevertheless, the 
useful effect is at best casual, and in the majority of cases the 
removal of the stimulus removes the motivation as well. 

The development in the pupil of the capacity for willing sus- 
tained application, founded only on the expectation that the 
subject matter will ultimately yield a sustaining interest, is 
therefore the foundation of any systematic technique of teach- 
ing and learning. It is the starting-point of control technique. 

Teaching is, however, as often group instruction as the over- 
sight of individual study. Whenever the teacher has occasion to 
present a unit to the class group, or to make an explanation, or 
to conduct an effective group exercise such as is the foundation 
of operative technique in language teaching, a situation arises 
in which it is necessary to secure and hold the attention of the 
group as a whole. Let us call this aspect of the learning situation 
group attention. 

Group attention is frequently ignored. Under the influence 
of the daily task theory of teaching, the teacher’s mind is apt to 
be fixed upon hearing individual recitations rather than upon 
teaching. Not unnaturally, he overlooks the importance of se- 
curing and holding the undivided attention of every member of 
the group. The characteristic picture of such a situation is eager 
attention on the part of a few pupils, occasional attention on the 
part of a few others, and no attention at all on the part of a large 
percentage of the class. Obviously, a large waste occurs, and 
one which is normally related to the lesson-hearing technique. 
When one has delivered the goods which were called for and has 


ESTABLISHING THE LEARNING SITUATION 107 


become sensible that they are evidently what was called for, why 
be concerned while others deliver their own? Observation of 
concrete cases not infrequently discloses instances of failure to 
control the group aspect of the learning situation which have 
reached the logical extreme: a considerable number of the stu- 
dents are reading newspapers. The theory of teaching being 
what it is in such cases, it is entirely reasonable for students to 
be so engaged. They are utilizing time which would otherwise 
be wasted in keeping up with current events. 

Of course teaching can register only with pupils who are 
mentally attentive, not occasionally but continuously. Hence, 
neglect of the group-attention aspect of the learning situation 
means that group teaching has little or no effect. It registers 
only casually, and its results are seen later in the form of chance 
distribution. Obviously, mastery need not be looked for in the 
class as a whole. Nor is it sufficient that the class have the ap- 
pearance of attention. The pupils must be listening with their 
minds as well as with their ears. Spurious group attention is 
sometimes found in classes which are in control of the martinet 
type of teacher. The situation is analogous to that of the indi- 
vidual pupil who is under spurious motivation. . 

The continuous attention which is the condition precedent 
to effective group teaching we shall call sustained attention, and 
we shall use the term sustained application to refer to the similar 
attitude in the pupil during periods of study. 

Now, while sustained application is in the main the pupil’s 
own affair, sustained attention requires the mental participation 
of both teacher and pupil. The pupil learns to apply himself to 
the study in hand, with such help as he can get from the teacher, 
or he fails so to learn. Sustained attention, on the other hand, 
requires not only a willing and attentive pupil but an intelligible 
and forceful teacher conscious of the necessity of keeping every 
member of the class group within the reach of a compelling per- 
sonality. Nevertheless, forceful and intelligible teaching is still 
only one of the two factors at work. The other is volitional train- 


108 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


ing of the pupil into the capacity of assimilative listening to the 
spoken word just as in study he is trained into assimilative read- 
ing of the written word. To this extent, the same principles apply 
to the pupil’s sustained attention which apply to his sustained 
application. To neglect this aspect of pupil training is again for 
the teacher to allow himself to fall back on the precepts of soft 
pedagogy and to secure group attention by merely making the 
subject matter he presents “interesting.” The development of 
capacity for sustained attention and sustained application is 
obviously the practical foundation of training pupils in effective 
study habits. 

While good control technique with its ultimate effect upon 
the volitional powers of the individual pupil is clearly the foun- 
dation upon which all good study habits must be built, it is far 
from being the whole story of training in study capacity, Each 
type of teaching has its own type or types of related methods of 
study, and consideration of the further aspects of the problem 
must wait until we reach the chapters which deal with operative 
technique. 

May we turn now to some of the consequences of poor con- 
trol technique and by implication to some of the advantages of 
good control. 

It is obvious, in the first place, that good control technique 
and the elimination of waste are intimately related. Since learn- 
ing is wholly dependent, other things being equal, on the charac- 
ter and amount of attention secured, the amount of learning 
possible in a given time tends to be directly proportional to the 
degree of control technique secured in the course and in the 
school. Conversely, if we establish actual mastery as the stand- 
ard of attainment, the time required is in part a function of the 
control technique. If, for example, a given school maintains a 
consistent average of 50 per cent control as compared with an- 
other which on the same basis of rating yields a consistent av- 
erage of 75 per cent, plainly the second school should accom- 





ESTABLISHING THE LEARNING SITUATION 109 


plish in two years that for which the first requires three years, 
other things being equal. 

The waste-in-time consideration is not important in schools 
which are conducted on the time-to-be-spent theory. These 
schools arbitrarily define education in terms of time-to-be-spent 
—four years constitutes a high-school education, four years a 
college education, and so on. There can be no waste in time, for 
time is arbitrarily fixed for all. Waste is therefore expressible in 
terms of humanity which fails to conform. In such schools, good 
control technique means thrift in the use of human lives—a rela- 
tively low percentage of failure. 

If, on the other hand, we set up definite objectives of teach- 
ing in the form of mastery of definite learning units, then the 
matter of control technique comes to be of critical importance. 
With a low degree of group attention and the pupils left indefi- 
nitely without the trained capacity for sustained application, 
mastery may well be indefinitely deferred. 

The problem of administrative technique which perhaps 
calls for more attention than any other in current practice is that 
of the spread of the class group in learning rate. The determi- 
nist accepts this as inevitable and founded on inherent differ- 
ences in capacity to learn. He accordingly seeks to discover a 
homogeneous group by dint of discovering, through tests of va- 
rious kinds, individuals who are of approximately the same 
inherent rate of learning. He achieves some success in putting 
together individuals who are of the same type of conformity to 
the technique in vogue, usually the daily-lesson procedure. That 
individuals do differ in rate of learning in manifold ways is be- 
yond question, but many of these differences are founded on 
characteristics which are remediable. Conspicuous among these 
latter are differences in sustained attention and sustained appli- 
cation. The teacher who tolerates day after day a spread in at- 
tention from perfect attention to no attention at all and who ac- 
cepts a dawdling pupil with the fatalistic verdict, ‘““He cannot 
concentrate,” must expect a spread in the class group which 


IIO THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


makes any effective teaching of the group as a whole well-nigh 
impossible. A high grade of control technique, say 90 per cent 
or over, as a matter of fact, other things being equal, greatly re- 
duces the spread, and we can readily see why it is so. In the first 
place, teaching registers with the whole class instead of only 
with a part of the class; and in the second place, true motiva- 
tion is much more likely to characterize the class as a whole than 
the casual few individuals only. 

Low control technique means that there will be a large 
amount of half-learning in the class, much of which may escape 
detection in the presence of any tests which can be given. A 
certain type of pupil acquires remarkable facility in catching 
enough of the drift of things, by occasional momentary periods 
of attention, to present the appearance of mastery. Unless the 
testing is especially acute and rigorous, the superficial character 
of his learning escapes detection only to form a handicap in later 
units and in later courses—a handicap to the school because he 


will later require much reteaching and a handicap to him not 


only in school but in later life because of the habits of superfi- 
ciality which have become established. 

In practice, under mastery teaching, poor control shows its 
chief wasteful effect in the amount of reteaching required. The 
brilliant half-learner may escape reteaching for the moment, but 
the bulk of the class which has been only half-attentive or alto- 
gether inattentive fails in the teaching test and very probably 
after a second, third, or fourth teaching. The effect often is to 
create the impression of inferior learning capacity when in real- 
ity the ground of poor learning is to be found in poor control 
technique. The inattention is traceable simply to unconcern on 
the part of the.teacher whether his teaching reaches the whole 
class or only those few individuals in the class in whom motiva- 
tion has been casually established. On the other hand, there will 
usually be certain pupils in the class who have not learned vol- 
untary attention and who must be trained in that direction. 
Even with the best possible efforts on the part of the teacher in 


ESTABLISHING THE LEARNING SITUATION 111 


the direction of group control, these pupils escape. We shall 
turn to this aspect of the situation in chapter ix. 

An important corollary of all the foregoing is the principle 
that his control technique is a good fundamental index of the 
teacher’s capacity asa technician. However valuable may be 
the material which the teacher has to present, he cannot make it 
register with his pupils, and establish in them the learning prod- 
ucts which he seeks, unless he can and will secure and hold their 
sustained attention and, in the secondary school at least, de- 
velop in them the capacity for sustained application. The 
teacher’s control technique is as important as his operative tech- 
nique. No teacher who assumes to approach his task in a con- 
structive spirit, and who is to be credited with the educational 
point of view, can dismiss the matter from his mind with the 
trite comment, ‘“These pupils have failed because they are in- 
attentive.” That is the lesson-hearer’s theory of teaching. He 
can more correctly say, “These pupils have failed because I have 
been unable as yet to develop in them the capacity of sustained 
attention and sustained application.” 

On the other hand, it should be noted that, while poor con- 
trol technique always means poor teaching, good control tech- 
nique does not necessarily mean good teaching. The material 
itself may be unsuitable and even false. It may be wrongly 
placed in the pupil’s program of study. The teacher’s operative 
and administrative technique may either or both be such as to 
lead to failure to make the teaching register in the learning prod- 
ucts intended. Control technique is of primary importance but 
not necessarily of chief or ultimate importance. 

Lest the supervisory officer be misled by attracting his at- 
tention to the use of control technique as a means of rating’ 
teachers, a cautionary statement is not out of place. Any super- 
vision which is worth the while is constructive supervision. A 
supervisor who uses this or any other device for rating teachers 
simply as a means of detecting and eliminating the inefficient is 
adopting the lesson-hearing attitude in his relation to his teach- 


112 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


ers which he should be endeavoring to root out in their relations 
to the pupils. A supervisor who has not the educational point of 
view is not likely to develop that attitude among his teachers. 
Just as the sustained-application profile of the pupils described 
in chapter ix is the first step in building up the pupils’ volitional 
attitude toward their studying, so the group-attention analysis 
and score described in chapter viii should be used primarily 
for the purpose of attracting the attention of teachers concrete- 
ly to the obvious need of good group control and for the purpose 
of assisting them to improve-their practice. Any supervisor who 
will analyze and score his teachers’ group control, and will then 
discuss with them collectively and individually the bearing and 
significance of the whole matter, will be gratified by the im- 
provement which he will see taking place. Of course, a mature 
person who fails to improve his teaching, in either this or any 
other respect, on account of either inability or contumacy, 
should be eliminated from the teaching force. Society cannot af- 
ford the elimination of potentially good teachers, nor, on the 
other hand, can it afford the retention of persistent “problem 
cases”’ in the teaching force. 

In tracing out elements of the learning situation which are 
associated with training in voluntary attention, we have of 
course, emphasized these elements, perhaps to the point at 
which the reader may conclude that attention and the sustaining 
motivation which grows out of it are the only elements. This is 
far from being the case. While control technique is primarily 
concerned with securing and building up attention, it should be 
thought of. as applied to the learning situation as a whole. 
Among other elements which are related to control of the learn- 
ing situation rather than to the effects of good operative tech- 
nique, the following may be enumerated. It will be noted that 
they are chiefly the removal of inhibitions. 

Of these, perhaps the first in importance is the reduction of 
the mechanical detail of class conduct to the minimum. If we 
score the group attention from the moment when the study or 


ESTABLISHING THE LEARNING SITUATION 113 


the teaching period is supposed to begin to that at which it is 
supposed to end, we frequently come upon cases in which con- 
trol is nearly perfect during actual teaching or study time while 
the final score is low owing to waste of time in taking attend- 
ance, in entrance and dismissal of the class, and the like. It is 
very easy to lose ten minutes out of every class period in this 
way, and this loss may amount to anywhere from one-sixth to 
one-third of the whole learning time available. 

Control technique implies control of the physical conditions 
under which learning goes on. Temperature and humidity will 
often make the difference between a score which reflects atten- 
tion of high quality and an equal score which is associated with 
attention of poor quality. Similarly, street noises, disturbances 
in corridors and adjacent rooms, and the like furnish the condi- 
tions under which the good effects of good control are partially 
or wholly lost. 

It is of course a great mistake to think of good control tech- 
nique as practically synonymous with the securing of good or- 
der. We have seen that the martinet frequently succeeds merely 
in securing spurious attention. Nevertheless, due respect for the 
teacher, for the class, and for study is an esséntial element in the 
establishment of the learning situation and a major problem of 
effective control technique. Noisy, disorderly, insubordinate 
conditions in the class represent the weeds and rank primitive 
growth which must be extirpated before it is worth while to be- 
gin the process of cultivation. In a thoroughly good school sys- 
tem, this aspect of the learning situation is established in the 
primary social adaptations. Even in such a system, however, the 
influx of children from other communities is apt to make the pri- 
mary education a matter of continuous concern. There are two 
positions commonly held on this issue which must be met. 

One is that of the slack teacher and demagogic school exec- 
utive who talk plausibly of democracy and of the vice of re- 
pressive measures. This attitude can usually be identified as 
pure defense for inability or job-holding proclivities, and it is 


114 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


not entitled to serious argument. Suffice it to point out that it is 
full of peril to real democracy in a period when there resort to 
the secondary schools multitudes of children who are growing 
up in the indolent homes of the unduly prosperous, or in immi- 
grant homes in which the restraints of Europe have been relaxed 
without replacement by the wholesome restraints of America. 

The other position is in essence that children learn from ex- 
perience and that self-government can never be achieved in any 
fundamental and lasting sense except as children learn it for 
themselves, apart from compulsion. The premise is undoubted- 
ly sound, but the conclusions which are often drawn are falla- 
cious. It is true that children who are merely kept in good order 
by force of a dominating personality and an arbitrary school 
government are likely to leave school with few wholesome learn- 
ing products of a volitional sort established. It is, on the other 
hand, probably true that if children were left to themselves to 
do as they pleased in each generation, society would soon re- 
vert to its primitive condition, since it would become impossible 
to accumulate from generation to generation the appropriate so- 
cial controls. Children and youth learn from experience, and 
they are not likely to learn the blessings of good order unless 
they can experience good order. Such experience comes normal- 
ly out of rational obedience to the older generation. If the older 
generation, whether parent or teacher, gets no farther than the 
maintenance of obedience as a tribute to its own self-love, only 
the docile and unventuresome will profit, and these only in a 
spurious and undesirable fashion. If it convinces the youth of 
the necessity and dignity of good order, even though it be 
through the exacting of obedience, it achieves a real educational 
product. 





————s 


CHAPTER VIII 
MEASURING GROUP CONTROL 


technique in a constructive manner, it is evidently desirable 

to find some means of measuring and exhibiting sustained 
attention in the group and sustained application in the individ- 
ual pupil. To this purpose the present chapter and that which 
follows are addressed. Since the practicing teacher can hardly 
undertake the fundamental problem of developing individual 
sustained application until the class group as a whole is under 
control, we shall find it advantageous to deal with the latter as- 
pect of control technique first. 

The problem reduces itself to finding some way in which the 
aggregate pupil-minutes of attention in a given class period can 
be counted. If we attempt to refine the process to exact terms 
expressed in seconds and to take into account actual fluctuations 
in the individual pupil’s attention as they appear in the stream 
of consciousness, we shall find ourselves so bound down to the 
methods of the psychological laboratory as to be able to make 
little progress in dealing with the actual classroom situation. We 
can, however, set up a method by which useful approximations 
can be secured, measures more useful for our present purpose 
than would be refinements which cannot be used in teaching 
practice at all and which, if they could be used, would probably 
add little for the purpose which we have in mind. This is not to 
imply that the refined methods of the psychological laboratory 
could not be applied at all to the study of the sustained attention 
of the class group. On the contrary, they probably could be so 
applied with promise of much light on the nature of the learning 
situation as such. 

We can perhaps best begin by noting the number of pupils 


I: order to secure a concrete basis for dealing with control 


rms 


116 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


in a group who are apparently attentive, minute by minute, dur- 
ing a class period. 

The observer takes a position near the front of the room so 
placed that he can look into the faces of all the pupils and at the 
same time be himself out of the natural line of their vision. It 
is essential that the class shall not to any considerable degree be 
curious about the observer to the extent of directing attention 
upon him and his activities. To this end, it may be necessary to 
experiment in several different meetings of the same group or 
until the pupils become accustomed to the presence of the ob- 
server. More often, the observer will need only to wait until the 
pupils’ first curiosity has been satisfied and their minds have 
resumed normal activity. In this case, he can usually get a fairly 
satisfactory score for the latter part of the period. The tech- 
nique of observation is primarily for the observer to make him- 
self as inconspicuous as possible. If the class evidently does not 
become accustomed to the presence of the observer, the record 
should be thrown out. 

An appropriate situation having been established, the ob- 
server notes minute by minute the number of pupils in attention. 
It is convenient for this purpose to have a simple record card so 
fastened to a tablet that it can be laid on the lap, or on the arm 
of a chair, in such a manner that the observer can record with 
his right hand while holding a watch in the left. A sample scor- 
Ing is shown in Table V. 

In this case the observer began on the stroke of the bell to 
count pupils in attention. At 10:01, he was ready to count again 
and so continued until the end of the period. Scoring is not ordi- 
narily done in this somewhat meticulous fashion. The minute- 
by-minute score has the advantage of greater precision, and it is 
well for the beginner to practice with this form until he secures 
facility. Much the same result can be obtained by scoring at 
two- or three-minute intervals, averaging the results, and multi- 
plying by the total elapsed number of minutes in order to derive 
the total pupil-minutes attention. 


MEASURING GROUP CONTROL 1 47, 


TABLE V 
Pupils in 
Attention 
BrP 111 te CASSIE Lids 5! c's. «ian: « a d.0, vlaleeinisters 30 

POEL CUE oes atl aia's. o's 0 sc + .00's ¢ 5c 5 10:00 6 
OI 6 
02 6 
03 6 
04 6 
O5 6 
06 6 
07 7 
08 9 
09 16 
10 25 
iI 27 
12 28 
13 28 
14 28 
15 28 
16 28 
17 24 
18 23 
19 20 
20 20 
21 20 
22 20 
23 19 
24 18 
25 17 
26 16 
ey 30 
28 30 
29 30 
30 28 
3t 24 
42 20 
33 16 
34 13 


118 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


TABLE V—Continued 


Pupils in 
Attention 
35 8 
36 6 
37 6 
38 6 
39 6 
40 6 
4l 6 
42 7 
43 8 
44 6 
45 6 
46 6 
47 39 
48 30 
49 30 
PETIOG ENLASs sa sha Wisle'y a la'e e's Cla sateen ae 10:50 
Number of mintites ss 0) 0.0. ose e wen ena oiar ee 50 
Possible pupil-minutes attention 
30X 50=1,500 
Actual pupil-minutesattention: 6 g2.c, 8 bistels bee ie y's Sie cee 821 
Percentage of attentions ise je siciy Sicsta ec bn icin i te ars. c eee 55 


Even a single minute is a very considerable interval of time, 
and the fact becomes impressive when one is observing a class 
with occasional glances at the second-hand of a watch. Even 
during a single minute, a given pupil will be in and out of appar- 
ent attention several times. The pupil who is really attending to 
business, however, remains in that state over several minutes at 
least, and the observer soon learns to count the pupils who ex- 
hibit the characteristics of attention rather than the mere mo- 
mentary physical fact of apparent attention. 

The question at once arises, When is a pupil in attention? 
The observer must practice with classes until he can answer the 
question for himself and rapidly note the attentive pupils with- 
out arousing in his own mind debate as to whether a given pupil 


MEASURING GROUP CONTROL 119 


is or is not in attention. He will find before long that he has at- 
tained considerable confidence in the snap judgments which he 
must thus make. In the ordinary class there are usually found 
three kinds of pupil situations with respect to our problem. 

The large majority of pupils who are inattentive are ob- 
viously so. They are looking out of the window, conversing with 
neighbors, engaged in arranging their toilets, obviously dream- 
ing, doing something which is clearly not connected with the 
work in hand. 

Most of the pupils who are attentive are again obviously 
attentive. Eyes, physical posture, activities, leave the observer 
in no doubt. Everything speaks of the mind which is focused 
upon the work in hand, whether it be an explanation which is 
being presented by the teacher, the recitation of a fellow-pupil, 
or a piece of study upon which the pupil. is himself engaged. 
These pupils of course represent the standard to which the group 
as a whole must be brought. 

The observer’s principal problem is with a third group, the 
pupils who are “listening with their ears but not with their 
minds.” These pupils range from the prim little girl who sits 
erect, in perfect decorum, ready to react to any obvious stimu- 
lus, such as a question put by the teacher, to the lounging boy 
with head on hand sprawled over the top of the desk whose 
hand moves listlessly and automatically whenever others’ hands 
move. In sorting out the really attentive from this group, the 
observer will learn to depend much more upon his own expe- 
rience than upon any precepts which can be laid down. Certain 
guide marks can, however, be suggested. _ 

In the first place, in all but a few exceptional cases, the at- 
tentive child or youth has a characteristic physical attitude. His 
feet are usually drawn up beneath the chair, head slightly in- 
clined forward, the whole body tense rather than relaxed. As 
the play of the mental situation develops, from the alert teacher 
to the responses of another pupil, eyes, head, and whole body 
follow the movement. 


120 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


The almost infallible index of attention is the eye. Would 
that we could describe in precise terms the characteristics of the 
eye expression which tells of the alert and attentive mind! We 
can only advise the observer to note, confident that a brief expe- 
rience will enable him to identify the signs with a degree of as- 
surance which will give abundant help in arriving at a reliable 
approximate estimate of the amount of sustained attention 
found in a given class period. 

If the obviously inattentive and the obviously attentive are 
first counted and then the two rules which have been suggested 
are applied to the doubtful cases, there will be little of the ele- 
ment of uncertainty left in the measure. There will be some. A 
certain type of pupil wears an inexpressive face. If he is not ob- 
viously inattentive, it is hard to tell whether or not he is atten- 
tive. Neither his physical attitude nor his eye carries conviction 
to the observer. As the period draws on, however, such a pupil 
often sooner or later gives clear evidence whether or not he has 
been attentive, and in that case the score can be corrected. If 
a need is felt for the greatest possible precision in scoring—and 
this is usually the case when scoring is being done for investiga- 
tional purposes—these uncertain individuals can be excluded 
from the counting altogether and due note made of the circum- 
stance. 

In considering a class score with the teacher, the supervisor 
will frequently be met with a statement which runs something 
like this: “I note that you have rated A as inattentive because 
he was looking out of the window. Now, that is his way, but he 
is paying attention just the same, for he always answers correct- 
ly when I ask him a question.” The issue comes upon the teach- 
er’s phraseology, “paying attention.” The period is usually a 
lesson-learning situation and A has learned how to keep the gen- 
eral situation always in the margin of consciousness sufficiently 
well to enable him to pick it up at need with little lost motion. 
There is, however, a vast difference between “paying attention” 
and that focal attention to material which is being presented by 


MEASURING GROUP CONTROL 121 


the teacher or the textbook which is the essence of the learning 
situation. 

“When is the pupil attentive?” suggests “attentive to 
what?” In general to any situation in respect to which the ob- 
server wishes to measure attention. It may be a study period, a 
presentation or explanation, a class discussion, or a class period 
as a whole. In systematic supervision, the last is properly the 
object to be measured, but with discrimination. 

_ Good control technique presumes sustained attention to the 
work in hand, from the moment when the opening bell rings un- 
til that at which the closing signal is given. Nevertheless, it 
should be borne in mind that it is teaching technique which we 
are measuring and not merely the pupils’ occupation. If a study 
period is evidently expected, then the object of attention is 
study. If the teacher is making a presentation to the class, pre- 
sumably he requires the attention of the class to his words. If 
a pupil in that case keeps on studying, he is out of attention, 
even though he may be engaged on profitable study. If the work 
in hand is a recitation, it is presumably conducted on the theory 
that it is serviceable to the class as a whole; therefore a pupil 
who is attentive to something else than the recitation is out of 
attention. 

The observer who has been long accustomed to the mechan- 
ical administrative technique which is so common a feature of 
schoolroom practice is apt to approach the task of measuring 
educational products under the obsession of various stereotypes, 
which have become established in a process of scoring and grad- 
ing and crediting persons rather than things: The questions are 
ever to the foreground in his mind: “Is this score just to the 
pupil?” “Is it fair to the teacher to include that incident?” 
“Must I not omit this interruption in order to be fair to the prin- 
cipal?” It is essential that all such stereotypes be destroyed. 
The purpose of measuring and recording is a veracious picture 
of an actual objective situation. There is no question of justice 
as between individuals in the matter. The personal element is 


222 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


in the observer’s mind because it has been placed there by an ut- 
terly false and mechanical theory of education and of teaching, 
namely, that the whole problem of teaching is the award of 
credits to individual pupils and that the nature of education is 
the accumulation of a standard number of such credits. In 
measuring group attention, the observer has before him the sim- 
ple problem of estimating accurately, and as precisely as cir- 
cumstances will permit, the actual situation before him, personal 
implications of every sort whatsoever being for the moment 
completely ignored. 

How reliable is the score thus found? That is to say, How 
closely will two equally competent observers agree in their final 
estimate for the same class situation? It may be stated in an- 
swer that the process is not one of precision, and consequently 
absolute agreement between the scores of two observers is out 
of the question. If such occurs, it is to be attributed to accident. 

The minute-by-minute score is more precise and conse- 
quently more reliable than the analytical score by phases de- 
scribed below, although the latter is far more useful for practical 
purposes. 

In a group of, let us say, forty observers, there will usually 
be two or three individuals whose scores are markedly eccen- 
tric, deviating perhaps twelve to fifteen points on the percentile 
scale from the median of the group. With these exceptions, the 
scores of individual observers rarely deviate more than five 
points from the median of the scores of the groups of observers. 
The agreement is commonly within a range of less than ten 
points between the extreme estimates. Classes with scores of 
about 80 per cent to 100 per cent and those which show scores 
of less than about 50 per cent can seemingly be estimated with 
more confidence than others. The reason is obvious. The higher 
scores include many individual pupils who show consistent sus- 
tained attention, and the lower scores many who show consistent 
inattention. The middle scores include a great deal of fluctu- 
ating attention which is harder to count. Translated into com- 


MEASURING GROUP CONTROL 123 


mon parlance, we may say that a computed score of, let us say, 
80 per cent may correspond to an actual score of 75 per cent or 
85 per cent, but we can feel sure that the actual score is not 90 
per cent nor yet 50 per cent nor 60 per cent. 

In learning the technique, observers should practice in 
groups if possible until facility has been developed and until ec- 
centric scoring has been eliminated. For example, a city district 
superintendent can call his school principals and their supervis- 
ory staffs together and set them to self-training. Similarly, in a 
survey, the groups of observers who are to do the class scoring 
should be submitted to a period of practice until their scoring 
becomes homogeneous. In the process of such practice, the per- 
sonal equations of the several observers will tend to develop. 
That is, some individuals will be found to make relatively low 
estimates and others relatively high. The period of practice 
draws to an end when in the observing group different individ- 
uals find their places in the following manner. In the first few 
observations, observers A, B, C, D, E, and F will probably dis- 
tribute themselves from highest score to lowest somewhat as 
follows: | | 

1. B—C—E—A—-D—F 

2, A—D—F—-E—B—C 

3. D—F—B—A—E—C 

This distribution is eccentric and shows that the learning 
process is still going on. On the fifth, sixth, and seventh observa- 
tions, however, the distribution may appear more as follows: 

oD RAe BE GC 

6. D—F—A—E—B—C 

7. D—F—A—E—B—C 

The indication now is that the several observers have found 
each his characteristic individual scoring tendency, and the pe- 
riod of practice can be brought to an end. After some further 
experience, the personal equation of each observer can be ap- 
proximated statistically if desired and his scores corresponding- 
ly corrected. 


124 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


Lest the suggestions just made should discourage the prin- 
cipal or superintendent who has no supervisory staff and who is 
remote from fellow-workers, attention is called to the principle 
that objective precision here is not a matter of first importance 
for the constructive use which may be made of group-attention 
measurements. Constructive supervision has to rely chiefly on 
comparisons. A given score is not in itself so important as is the 
relation which it bears to earlier and later scores of the same 
class group. When the same observer makes both scores, the 
chances are that he will terid to make the same error in one as in 
another, and in a comparison these errors will largely or wholly 
neutralize one another. 


PHASE SCORING 


The minute-by-minute score is of little use when it is de- 
sired either to study the influence of different devices upon class 
attention or to help the teacher to build up a satisfactory con- 
trol technique. For such purposes, it is desirable to break up the 
class period into phases, note the character of each phase and 
the fluctuations of attention from phase to phase. The method 
is illustrated by the reports of actual observations listed in Ta- 
ble VI. 

Case II gives us an excellent illustration of the use of the 
class-attention analysis for purposes of constructive improve- 
ment of control technique. The attention is very good compared 
with the 40 per cent, 30 per cent, or even 10 per cent which we 
frequently find, any one of which is of course practically equiva- 
lent to no attention at all. But the technique reported in Case 
II is easily susceptible of improvement, and we can readily see 
wherein. 

In the first four minutes we find a clumsy management of 
mechanical detail. The papers might have been on the desks 
when the class entered and a single announcement made to 
serve. Further, in Phase I the instructor accepts inattention 
from 8 pupils, or rather does not succeed in attracting their at- 


MEASURING GROUP CONTROL 125 


TABLE VI 


Case I. Mathematics (last 30 minutes of a 50-minute period) 
I °’ 9! st 4! a! 
28 30 30 30 30) 7: 
So, TM TTDI EL a 98 per cent 


Analysis by phases 
J. Supervised study 
Inattention caused by whispering 
II, Explanation by instructor 
II. Problem solving 
IV. Discussion 
7 pupils asked questions 
2 pupils made suggestions 
V. Explanation of problem by pupil 
Computation 
Number of pupils—3o0 
Phase I—Pupils attentive, 28. Time elapsed, ro minutes 
28X 10= 280 pupil-minutes attention 
Phase II—30X 9=270 pupil-minutes attention 
Phase III—30X 5=150 pupil-minutes attention 
Phase IV—30X 4=120 pupil-minutes attention 
Phase V—30X 2= 60 pupil-minutes attention 


Total pupil-minutes attention = 880 
Total possible pupil-minutes attention, 30X 30= 900 
Percentage of attention=98 


Case Il. Social science 


ag 2! ae a r’ 


p2td__O 20 23 24 15 23 23 O10 72323 1 2.30 | 
STOLL y eee MVM ELL ADK XI 
Analysis by phases 
I, Announcement 
II. Passing out test papers 
III. Further announcements and settling down to business 
IV. Work on tests 
V. Belated pupil enters 
VI. Work resumed 


, 4 / 


iuaten iit ae 
88 


126 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


TABLE ViI—Continued 


VII. Papers exchanged, graded, and handed in 
VIII. More test papers distributed 
LX. Work on papers; pupil leaves 
X. Papers exchanged, graded, and handed in. Another set 
distributed and announcement made 
XI. Consultation and work on papers 


Computation 
Total Number of Pupils: 

23 for 7 minutes 

24 for 13 minutes 

23 for 30 minutes 
Phase I—Pupils attentive, 15. Time elapsed, 1 minute 

15 1= 15 pupil-minutes attention 

Phase II— oX 2=  o pupil-minutes attention 
Phase JII—20X 1= 20 pupil-minutes attention 
Phase IV—23X 3= 69 pupil-minutes attention 
Phase V—15xX 1= 15 pupil-minutes attention 
Phase VI—23x 7=161 pupil-minutes attention 
Phase VII—23X 4= 92 pupil-minutes attention 
Phase VIII— oX 1= 0 pupil-minutes attention 
Phase IX—23X14=322 pupil-minutes attention 
Phase X—21X 5=105 pupil-minutes attention 
Phase XI—2z0X11= 220 pupil-minutes attention 


Total pupil-minutes attention= 1,019 
Total possible pupil-minutes attention 23 7= 161 





24X13Z= 312 
23X30= 690 
1,163 


Percentage of attention = 88 


tention. Out of these three phases, we get thirty-five pupil-min- 
utes attention when we should have obtained ninety-two. 

The entrance of a late pupil breaks down attention for one 
minute. This is not nearly so bad as is frequently the case, but 
the pupils should be trained not to permit attention to be dis- 
tracted in this manner. We lose eight pupil-minutes here. 


MEASURING GROUP CONTROL 127 


The second set of papers, like the first, should have been 
ready on the desks and properly protected from premature in- 
spection. We lose twenty-four pupil-minutes. 

In Phases X and XI, we note a total loss of forty-three pu- 
pil-minutes. Very possibly the attention could not profitably 
have been saved, but the score for these phases at once brings 
the technique into question. 

It will be noted that in a relatively long phase, like IX in 
Case II, a single figure is given as the count of the number of 
pupils attentive. The figure is theoretically the average number 
of pupils in attention during the phase. In precise scoring, the 
observer makes a minute-by-minute count in one of these long 
phases. In practice, however, it is usually possible, in a phase of 
moderate length, to determine the attentive pupils by inspection, 
for in most cases a pupil who is attentive during part of such a 
phase will be attentive throughout. The observer should keep 
his mind focused on the essential issue, which is in substance, 
“Is a given pupil attending to business?” With this issue in 
mind, it will quickly become apparent that certain pupils are at- 
tentive and these can be dismissed from constant observation, 
leaving the observer free to study the behavior of the inatten- 
tive and the uncertain. After some practice, it is usually possible 
to estimate closely the average number of attentive pupils dur- 
ing a phase of considerable length, without making a minute-by- 
minute score. 

Division of a class period into phases is largely a matter of 
the kind of analysis desired. In Case II, the observer has appar- 
ently identified all the phases. Another might have combined I, 
II, and III, and VII and VIII, so that there would have been a 
total of eight phases instead of eleven. If the count is accurately 
made, however, the final score will not be affected by the phases 
selected. 

Ordinarily, the phases select themselves, but it sometimes 
becomes desirable to break up a long phase for special reasons. 
This is particularly true when the observer notes a sudden fall 


128 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


or sudden rise in attention. For instance, if we regard the period 
subjected to the minute-by-minute count shown on page II7 as 
a single long phase, such as a study period or a lecture, it at once 
becomes apparent that there are four well-marked phases— 
one ending with the eighth minute, one with the thirty-fourth, 
one with the forty-sixth, and one with the end of the period. 
When such pronounced fluctuations in attention occur, it is of 
course desirable to know the cause. 


USE OF THE SCORING 


Let us now give some further consideration to the use to 
which sustained attention scoring and particularly the period 
analysis by phases can be put. 

In the first place, the minute-by-minute score, or some suit- 
able modification thereof, gives us a good starting-point for 
evaluating the teaching technique of different teachers. In this 
sense, it is a device which can effectively be used in school sur- 
veys. There is good correlation between the teacher’s control 
technique and his gross effectiveness as a classroom technician. 
It is fair to assume that the teaching in a large school or ina 
city-school system which is associated with consistently low or 
erratic attention scores is less effective than is the teaching in 
another system or school which is associated with consistently 
high attention scores. 

It is fair to assume that a given teacher who has consistently 
poor control technique cannot be an effective teacher, but it does 
not follow that a teacher who has uniformly good control tech- 
nique is therefore a good teacher. The attention may be spuri- 
ous. The operative technique may be so defective in principle 
that the teacher is doing more harm than good. Even the subject 
matter may be false. 

The supervisory officer can use his attention scores as one 
means of locating trouble. If progress is slow under a given 
teacher, if many reteachings are required, if a disproportionate 
number of failures occurs, the supervisor may be able thus defi- 


MEASURING GROUP CONTROL 129 


nitely to locate the cause. If the control technique is poor, we 
have found the point at which correction should begin. If con- 
trol technique is apparently good, the quality of attention comes 
in question. Is attention genuine or spurious? If control tech- 
nique is good and attention of good quality, we have at least 
eliminated one major field of possible defects. 

In the case of teachers whose control is good, the period an- 
alysis gives us a means of locating the weak points and bringing 
control close to 100 per cent. 

In the case of teachers whose control is poor, simple exhibi- 
tion of the results of a period analysis will start the process of 
improvement. The supervisor will repeatedly encounter teach- 
ers in whose cases exhibit of a period analysis will be the first 
intimation they have ever had that control technique is a vital 
factor in effective teaching. Improvement is ordinarily imme- 
diate and marked, and the teacher becomes interested in subse- 
quent scorings, which can be made either by the supervisor or by 
a fellow-teacher. Conversely, consistently low scores studied in 
connection with the teachers’ personality will sometimes prove 
to be convincing evidence to the teacher himself that he has mis- 
taken his calling. 

The wise, and perhaps somewhat cynical, administrator dis- 
trusts the ‘‘popular” teacher, and it is hard sometimes to secure 
good evidence of the difference between popularity which is 
wholesome and well founded and that which amounts only to an 
unworthy appeal to the prejudices of immature pupils. Let us 
take two such teachers and secure a series of group-attention 
scores from an observer who is reliable, impartial, and for whom 
the pupils will not be on their best behavior. In both cases we 
find good scores while the teacher is present, but in one case the 
score is equally good when the teacher is absent while in the 
other work is laid aside as soon as the teacher is out of the room. 
One teacher is educating; the other is not. 

The same procedure will serve as a typical method of dis- 
criminating between the educators and the non-educators who 


130 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


are not suspected of being popularity hunters but on the con- 
trary are known to be martinets. Attention scoring when the 
teacher is out of the room gives us a good fundamental index 
whether or not any transformation is being wrought in the pu- 
pils. If the class consistently shows a high score when the teach- 
er is present and the attention falls greatly when the teacher 
steps out, we may well doubt that any of the teacher’s work is 
generating the true learning products. Here are a few notes 
from observations: 


Case 1.—The most interesting phases of this period were the third 
to the eighth where the attention was practically 100 per cent. Five 
pupils remained with their books as if they did not want to leave them 
even when the bell had rung dismissal. 

Case 2.—Teacher was one minute late—attention, o. Attention, 
Phases II-VI, roo per cent, roo per cent, go per cent, go per cent, 
go per cent. Phase VII, teacher leaves room for one minute—atten- 
tion, 80 per cent. Phases VIII—XI: attention, roo per cent. 

Case 3.—Phase I: Teacher gave directions for writing essays and 
suggested topics. Left the room at 8:10. Attention, 100 per cent. 
Phase IJ: Continued writing essays. Attention, 100 per cent. Phase 
III: One boy consulted dictionary. He and other conversed for three 
minutes. Attention, 89 per cent. Phase IV: Boy borrowed paper. At- 
tention, 94 per cent. Phase V: Teacher returned at 8:40. Attention, 
100 per cent. 

Case 4.—Phases I-III. Confusion in getting settled. Attention, 
o-50 per cent. Phases IV and V: Better order but conversation still 
continued. Attention, 87 per cent and 94 per cent. Phases VI and 
VII: Attention, 69 per cent. Phases VIII and IX: Teacher leaves 
room for eight minutes. Attention, 37 per cent and 25 per cent. 
Phase X: Teacher returns. Attention, roo per cent. 


The foregoing paragraphs will serve to illustrate the many 
uses to which scoring the group control can be put in the direc- 
tion of inspection and constructive supervision. 

We should not close this chapter without suggestions to the 
teacher of means through which group control can be built up. 
The suggestions do not imply that any person who happens to 


MEASURING GROUP CONTROL 131 


occupy the teacher’s chair can take the list, go through the mo- 
tions of applying them, and be assured of success. Success de- 
pends upon the insight, the willingness, and the perseverance of 
the teacher. The suggestions do represent a series of principles 
which a teacher who possesses the qualities just named can apply 
with assurance of improved group control. Each of them is the 
product of observation of many class periods and analysis of the 
results. 

First in importance is the fundamental matter of direct 
teaching as contrasted with lesson-learning. A class in the les- 
son-learning situation is obliged to rely for its motivation upon 
fellow-pupils rather than upon the teacher. In the nature of the 
case, the instances are rare in which the reciting pupil can have 
anything to say to which the class as a whole can yield genuine 
attention. At the best, the class can only be brought into an atti- 
tude of critical attention to the merits of what the fellow-pupil 
gives forth, and, since by the fundamental hypothesis of the 
school all are still learning, it cannot be presumed that the class 
as a whole is in the intellectual position which makes criticism 
valid. As a matter of fact, except in rare instances, the critical 
comments of fellow-pupils are limited to a few individuals, and 
these deal much in guesswork. A strong and masterful teacher 
can of course develop the passive, spurious type of attention. 

The physical circumstances of the classroom have much to 
do with group control. Poor light and heat, often within the con- 
trol of the teacher, creaky and noisy furniture and outside dis- 
turbances which are within the control of the management if not 
of the teacher, all make good group control difficult if not impos- 
sible. 

The arrangement of pupil positions in the room seems to 
have a singular influence on the possibility of good control. The 
ordinary rectangular arrangement, in which the normal lines of 
vision of the pupils do not focus on the teacher’s position, tends 
to center the teacher’s effort on those directly in front. In some 
cases, scrutiny of the lists of failures in a school has disclosed 


132 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


that there are apt to be distinctly more failures in the cases of 
pupils who are seated along the sides and in the corners of a 
wide classroom than among the pupils who are seated directly in 
front of the teacher. A circular placing of pupil positions, such 
that the natural lines of vision of all pupils focus on the teacher’s 
position, appears to be a distinct help in the direction of good 
group control. 

Observation shows very clearly that when the teacher knows 
his subject and has a definite message for the class good group 
attention usually occurs. The contrast is found in classes in 
which the teacher is confined to the textbook, and especially in 
classes in which the teacher deals largely in leading questions. 
Theoretically, the lecture method is bad and class discussion 
based on suggestive questions is good. Practically, a talk by the 
teacher which is tantamount to a lecture usually secures a hear- 
ing, provided it is clear, forceful, to the point, and not too long; 
while suggestive questioning is usually associated with a low at- 
tention score. In the one case, the pupils have something to 
learn; in the other, the situation is either threshing over old 
straw or else appealing only to those who have already devel- 
oped an intellectual interest or are concerned about their marks. 
Nothing is more banal than the “thought-stimulating” question 
when the pupil has nothing to think about. 

The teacher who has any teaching power at all usually suc- 
ceeds in securing sustained group attention when he talks to the 
class. Many a teacher who might become an effective technician 
fails in a presentation, explanation, or class exercise, because his 
mind is upon subject matter and not upon his pupils. The ob- 
server can identify such practice, in much the same manner in 
which he identifies the genuinely attentive pupil, by watching 
the eye and expression. The “lecturer” has a far-away expres- 
sion, he may look toward his class but the pupils are plainly in 
the margin of consciousness, his gaze is frequently averted alto- 
gether. On the other hand, the teacher who really has a message 
to deliver has a kindling eye and tense physical expression. He 





MEASURING GROUP CONTROL 133 


brings the whole class within the power of his message. He is 
obliged to exert a great deal of energy, and the process is an ex- 
hausting one. The teacher who is not physically tired at the end 
of a day of teaching may well doubt that he has done any 
teaching. 

Closely related to the teacher who has his mind upon subject 
matter is the individual who has his mind upon himself. His 
whole personality is directed inward rather than outward. Now 
teaching, whether it is in the form of awakening the minds of 
high-school pupils to a given piece of understanding or apprecia- 
tion or of convincing an audience of the truth of a proposition, 
or of selling a customer a bill of goods, implies the vigorous pro- 
jection of personality. The audience becomes convinced because 
the speaker is convinced. The observer will find it hard to iden- 
tify the egoistic teacher on such vague guidance as is implied in 
the foregoing characterization, but we can be more concrete. 
Such a teacher, if observed at some length, will usually resort to 
sarcasm at times. A different variety of the same fundamental 
type is the teacher who conducts a continuous vaudeville per- 
formance in the classroom and thereby secures a high spurious 
attention. A third variety is that insufferable menace, the popu- 
larity hunter. We are by no means indulging here in mere con- 
demnation. The instances which we have cited are valuable in 
the present connection only as positive symptoms of an under- 
lying personal attitude which is seldom associated with good 
teaching or the capacity of maintaining a high degree of sus- 
tained genuine class attention, and which can often be corrected 
by the supervisor who knows how to handle men and women. 

Particularly during the supervised study period, good group- 
control technique depends upon good foremanship, that is, upon 
the ability of the teacher to so organize procedure that the major 
elements of waste will be eliminated. A supervised study period 
frequently shows long cues of pupils waiting to consult the 
teacher, or a waving forest of the hands of pupils who are en- 
deavoring to attract the attention of the teacher to their more 


134 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


or less imaginary needs. These are illustrations of bad foreman- 
ship. Such classes frequently score less than 50 per cent utiliza- 
tion of available time. Better management would eliminate the 
waiting lines altogether, reduce the pupil interview to the mini- 
mum actually needed, and reduce the time lost in the interval 
between the pupil’s call and the teacher’s attention to his call to 
a negligible amount. 

Assuming that all the suggestions here made are put into 
effective operation, there will still be individual pupils who have 
not learned to yield voluntary sustained attention. Many of 
these cases will yield if the teacher bears in mind the principle 
that he is teaching the group as a whole and not merely the pupils 
who are ready to attend. It is of course futile to call out to the 
inattentive, “I want your attention.” Equally futile is it to in- 
dulge in some sarcastic remarks calculated to penalize the inat- 
tentive. The writer has himself many times practiced and seen 
others practice the following technique. After a few minutes of 
teaching, the inattentive are noted. The teacher then talks di- 
rectly to these people with the conscious purpose of drawing 
them within the attentive group. Within a brief time, the teacher 
notes that the inattentive begin to be restless, glances turn tenta- 
tively in the direction of the teacher, and eventually one after 
another they settle into attentive attitudes. If now the teacher 
does not forget them, but persists several days, he will be pretty 
likely to cure all but a very few stubborn cases. 

These last become regularly identified problem cases, sub- 
ject to corrective measures, the basis of which is training in vol- 
untary sustained application. The latter aspect of control tech- 
nique is discussed in the next chapter. 


CHAPTER IX 
SUSTAINED APPLICATION 


HE term “sustained application,” within the meaning 
which we attach to it, applies only to voluntary atten- 


tion to a school task which does not initially carry its 
own motivation. The contrasting attention is that which is de- 
voted to an activity which is in itself appealing, the reading of a 
stirring story for instance. The latter is what we have called 
“absorption.” In a sense, the fundamental problem of teaching 
is to so train the pupil, so arrange his studies and so apply an ef- 
fective operative technique that he will eventually be able to be- 
come absorbed in any study which in itself is worth while. 
Apparently, the power of effective sustained application is some- 
thing which must be acquired. It does not come of itself as an 
element of the mental growth of the pupil. Hundreds of obser- 
vations of individual pupils, from the lower grades throughout 
the high school, exhibit little essential difference in capacity for 
sustained application—apart from training of one sort or an- 
other and apart from the intellectual interests which have been 
casually or systematically developed. 

Study of sustained application and systematic use of the 
principle in teaching technique alike require a method of meas- 
urement and recording. We shall need, not only to measure ap- 
plication, but to record its character. For this purpose, the stu- 
dent, the supervisor, and the teacher will find the sustained 
application profile described below useful (see Fig. 1). 

The column to the right of the heavy vertical line stands for 
application; that to the left for distraction. The spaces marked 
off by the horizontal lines are time intervals. The light horizon- 
tal lines mark off spaces of ten seconds each, and the heavy 
horizontal lines mark off minutes. The observation used in the 


135 


136 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


illustration was made upon a girl in an VIII A class in a city 
school. The observation ran for twenty minutes, during which 
there were recorded four hundred and seventy seconds of appli- 
cation (of poor quality) and seven hundred and thirty seconds 
of distraction. 

In making the mh the observer found a position in which 
he could clearly watch the pupil, even to the point of being able 
to follow roughly the eye movements, and such that the pupil 
was not conscious of being watched. With timepiece in hand and 
observation pad in a convenient position, he then noted the 
shifting of the phases and recorded the time elapsed for each to 
the nearest ten-second interval. He also noted, as well as he 
could, the behavior of the pupil during each phase. When the 
observation was complete, he made a neat profile with notes, as 
shown in Figure 1, for the pupil’s case-history folder. 

In discriminating between application and distraction, the 
general rules laid down in chapter viii apply, and they need not 
be repeated here. The reader is reminded, however, that the 
pupil must be unconscious of the observation. As soon as the 
latter becomes conscious, either spurious application will be set 
up or else he will become idly curious of the observer’s inten- 
tions and in that way set up prolonged distraction. If the ob- 
server secures a profile during fifteen or twenty minutes and the 
pupil then becomes conscious of observation, the record may be 
brought to an end and the profile may be reserved for study as 
useful and significant. If the pupil early becomes aware that he 
is being profiled, the observation would best be deferred to a 
more convenient period. 

The profile taken is that of a placid, untrained pupil whose 
study habits are practically nil. She is probably a part-learner, 
of the get-by, lesson-learning type. The percentage of appli- 
cation is 39. The average span of application is sixty-seven 
seconds, with a range of 30-110. The pupil starts the period 
with a distraction interval, which is itself apt to be symptomatic 
of poor study habits. The recorded behavior during the applica- 


SUSTAINED APPLICATION 


Idly turns pages of book 


Plays with neighbor’s hair 


Smiles at boys 


Looks at some writing on the 
board 


Gazes about, distributing 
smiles impartially over the 
entire room 


Again becomes interested in 
her neighbor’s hair 


Looks at the clock, smiles, and 
whispers to her neighbor 


Puts book away and converses 
with neighbor 


| 


| 


TTT 


| 
| 


FIG. 1 


137 


Reads rapidly 


= Reads slowly 


Reads about one page 


Continues to read 


Very much bored 


- Looking at pictures in. the 


book 


Hl 


- Reads with very irregular eye 
- movements 


Reads with slow eye move- 
ment 


138 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


tion intervals is evidence that such application as there is has 
little or no value. 

This profile is perfectly typical of the healthy, untrained, 
early adolescent, possessed of the volitional powers and study 


habits of perhaps the third grade. She is probably 
susceptible to immediate steps in the direction of 
training in the manner suggested below. Different 
is the case of the pupil who exhibits a profile like 
that shown in Figure 2. 

This is the*typical “fidgety” pupil. Before be- 


ginning the training process, it is well to look into 
the physical background of a profile of this type. It 
may be that the seat is uncomfortable and perhaps 
irritating or that the light on the desk is bad, or 
that there is a continuous distracting noise of some 
sort going on. It is more likely to be true that the 
pupil is subject to some bodily irritation. It may be 
bad teeth, eye-strain, irritation of the genital or 
anal region; or more general disorder of the ali- 
mentary tract traceable to bad eating habits or im- 
proper food. Insufficient sleep may be responsible. 
In any case, before attempting to develop volun- 
tary sustained application, this whole region of pos- 
sibilities should be explored. The parent will per- 
haps need to be called in and either through the 
family physician or the school health department 
a thorough physical examination secured and reme- 
dial medical treatment arranged for if needed. 
When the pupil begins to show a profile more like that of Figure 
3, Systematic training in volitional application may be set up. 


6 minutes 


FIG. 2 


TRAINING 


Figure 3 shows the progress of a piece of systematic train- 
ing, and to this constructive work we now turn. In the presence 
of such a problem, there are commonly to be found three differ- 


SUSTAINED APPLICATION 130 











Sept. 18 Nov. 22 
30” 90” 
4 rae a 209" 
60” 
1’ 10” 
5/ 40’ 
me 
ag Q’ 90" 
ere 50” 
20” 4’ 0" 
17107 
30” 
20” 
40” 
20” 20” 9! 10” 
40” 
20” ” 
5” 20 
20” 40” 
5/ 0” 
8" 20” 7/40” — | 640” 12/20" | 37997 16°40" 
Percentage 65% | 83% 


of application .... 48% 


FIG. 3 


140 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


ent attitudes among teachers and these are perhaps worth not- 
ing, for they shed a great deal of light on the attitudes of dif- 
ferent kinds of people to teaching in all its aspects. 

The first of these teachers encounters the boy profiled in 
Figure 3 early in the school year. He notes the pupil’s lack of a 
trained volitional capacity in his study and renders the fatalistic 
verdict, ‘George cannot concentrate.” That is the end of it. 
His great-grandfather would probably have explained the situa- 
tion more fully by asserting that ‘George is clearly not one of 
the elect.” He was predestined from the foundation of the world 
not to be able “to concentrate.” Our modern friend would say 
that George has clearly inherited ‘lack of concentration” and 
that it is fortunate that we have discovered the fact so early as 
September in the seventh grade, for we shall now advise him not 
to continue in school but to seek some vocation in which concen- 
tration is not necessary. 

The second teacher, who has the reputation of being a strong 
disciplinarian, says that what George needs is ‘“‘to be made to 
concentrate,’ and he forthwith descends on the boy in such 
fashion that George becomes most skilful in setting up spurious 
sustained application, that is, he “looks at his book.” There is 
no denying that George sometimes under this process encounters 
material in the book which sets up a sustaining motivation and 
thereby profits. He is a great deal more likely to become an ac- 
complished time-server and to build up a complete anti-learning 
attitude. 

The third teacher communes thus with himself: “This hu- 
man organism, George, is doubtless like the rest of his kind, ex- 
ceedingly adaptable. We must find some way to convince him 
that he does not stick to business in his study and further that 
such is obviously the probable foundation of the poor work he 
is doing. George does not seem to have any particular pride in 
poor work as such nor does he appear to derive satisfaction from 
it.” And so the process of setting up a real volitional learning 
product in George is begun. 


SUSTAINED APPLICATION I4I 


Now if we could be made to see ourselves as others see us, 
we should probably lay aside all but our most cherished follies. 
Being reprobated for them, however, makes little impression 
upon us other than to lead us to avoid exhibiting the said follies 
in the presence of the person whom they seem to irritate. It is of 
little consequence to inform George that he does not concen- 
trate; he does not know what is meant. Bidding him “to study” 
does no good. Studying is something he has yet to learn. On the 
other hand, if the teacher, unobserved, makes a picture of 
George at work for, let us say, fifteen minutes, and then pri- 
vately exhibits to him his likeness with a clear explanation show- 
ing why this sort of thing is intimately related to his difficulties 
with his school work, something may come of it. 

In the case which we present something like that was done 
on September 18.* Little more was said beyond the statement 
that he, George, could improve himself and that some day the 
teacher would make another picture and see what had happened. 
The pupil became at once interested. The profile of October 12 
shows notable improvement. It can be seen that for the first two 
minutes or more the boy has a struggle with himself. He has, 
however, transferred his long phases from the distraction side 
to the application side. He can “keep going” for nearly ten 
minutes with only one resting-point, and the latter is not a pe- 
riod of restlessness. He has improved his gross application from 
48 to 65 per cent, but there is still room for improvement. The 
profile for November 22 is nearly normal for the kind of work 
he is doing. He starts in application, shows no restless periods, 
and ends in application. His rest intervals are still too long, but 
he is doing well enough for the present. If he is profiled occa- 
sionally, he will eventually show an absorption profile, ie., a 
profile like that of November 22 but with the rest periods re- 

* The pupil in this case was a retardate in the rapid-promotion group of the 
Ben Blewett Junior High School, St. Louis. The case is reported by Miss Dena 


Lange. The boy’s name is of course fictitious. Poor concentration was only one 
of the boy’s troubles. 


142 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


duced to mere momentary distractions. His gross percentage 
is now 83 over a period of twenty minutes, but the character of 
the profile is more significant than the percentage of appli- 
cation. 

Before setting out on the program of training thus described, 
the skilful teacher will canvass the situation, and remove the 
external stimuli of distraction. We have already seen what this 
means in the case of the pronouncedly restless and fidgety pupil. 
George at the outset has some appearance of this characteristic, 
but we note that he can sit placidly in distraction for nearly five 
minutes, and there is therefore some reason for thinking that 
his bodily condition is not predominantly responsible for his 
restlessness. But there are many distracting influences at work 
in the school which are not related to the bodily organism. 
George very probably has a neighbor, the presence of whom 
constitutes a mutual distracting influence between the two. 
After exhibiting the first profile, we may suggest to the two 
neighbors that they will be helped if for the present they occupy 
other seats. We may suggest to the girl, Blanche, whom we may 
have occasion to study, that it would be wise for her to leave 
her vanity box in the girls’ dressing-room or still better to forego 
those charms to the endurance of which the vanity box seems 
to be essential. Mary may be told that the temperature of the 
room seems hardly to justify the protection of her new fur coat. 
Nevertheless, such matters should come to the pupil not as com- 
mands but only as suggestions. If they are not accepted and the 
teacher observes that they are not, an early profile will reveal 
their influence. We are building up a learning product, and the 
test of such is always voluntary behavior. It may be that the 
neighbors will continue to sit together and that Mary will con- 
tinue to cherish her new garment and still resist distraction. If 
such is the case, the learning is distinctly better than otherwise. 
Ability to resist distraction is better than skill in removing 
temptation, albeit the latter is doubtless more economical. 

Thus far we have emphasized the relation of sustained ap- 


SUSTAINED APPLICATION 143 


plication to the merit of the school work which the pupil does, 
or better to the facility and the completeness with which he 
learns. The reader must not be misled by such emphasis. Other 
things being equal, the pupil’s power of sustained application 
will bear a very direct relation to the learning which he does, but 
other things are not always equal. This pupil may have a very 
respectable degree and quality of sustained application and still 
his learning may be difficult and poor. He may present an in- 
adequate apperceptive mass, that is, he may have fatal gaps in 
his intellectual background. The teacher’s presentations may be 
defective. The pupil may be a bad reader. There may be any 
one of a host of inhibitions. On the other hand, a pupil who has 
poor sustained application may not be able to correct his inade- 
quate learning by improving his application; additional correc- 
tives may be needed. But, poor sustained application is incom- 
patible with efficient learning. The pupil who learns in spite of 
it would learn more, learn better, and learn more rapidly if his 
application were corrected. If we find a non-learner with poor 
sustained application, our first step in the corrective or remedial 
process is to develop this essential power. In order to make con- 
crete the significance of improving application as the foundation 
of improving study capacity and the learning which goes with 
it, the following case study is presented in brief. The study was 
made in the winter of 1924 in the University High School by 
Miss Catherine Morgan, a student of the author. 

The subjects are two girls, whom we will call A and B, en- 
rolled in an eighth-grade science class. The pupils had entered 
the school in October, 1923. Their previous school history in 
brief had been eight years in the public schools. The study and 
experimental teaching began January 22, 1924, and ended 
March 11. The I.Q.’s were 115 and 1009, respectively. At the 
beginning of the study, in point of time required for mastery, A 
was one of the slowest pupils in the class and B somewhat below 
the median. 

Seven profiles were first made, in order to secure the charac- 


144 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


teristics of each girl. The pupils were then shown the profiles 
by the teacher and the process of training was carried on in the 
manner which we have already described. Profiles were then 
made on February 6, 7, 15, 19, 26, 27, 29, and March rr. 
Figure 4 shows the profiles at the beginning of observation. 
These are, on the whole, poorer than others in the first series of 
seven, but they represent typically the two girls at what may be 
called their “untrained level.” Figure 5 exhibits the profiles on 
the second day after conference; and Figure 6, the profiles at 
the end of the period of observation. Inspection of the series will 


TABLE VII 
JAN. 22-23 FEB. 7 MARCH II 
A B A B A B 
' Percentage of application........... 67 84 95 89 gt 87 
Number of distractions............- 13 10 5 12 5 8 
Mean span of application........... 61 IOI 190 79 218 130 


Range in span of application........ 10-250] 20-410]70—420] 20-160|80-390} 20-345 


reveal the improvement both in quantity and quality of applica- 
tion. If the whole series of profiles were exhibited, it would be 
seen that there were fluctuations from day to day, but that, on 
the whole, the trend was upward. The improvement is shown 
more exactly in Table VII. 

Student A shows a distinct and sustained improvement in 
both quality and quantity of application. She increases her per- 
centage of application markedly and decreases the number of 
her distractions. She improves her mean span of application and 
her shorter periods of application. In other words, she studies 
more and studies more steadily. Her chief remaining opportuni- 
ties for improvement are: (1) to decrease the number of distrac- 
tions, for she still allows herself to be interrupted at the rate of 
fifteen times in every hour; (2) to increase her shorter periods 
of application. 

Student B improves somewhat, but not much, in both quan- 





SUSTAINED APPLICATION 145 


A. Jan. 23 20 minutes B. Jan. 22. 





Slow in getting started Conversation 


Fixes hair 


Talks to girls 


Conversation 


Vacantly gazing about | 
Stares about 


Conversation 
Conversation 


Stares about 


Gazes at doings in 
front of room 





Watches teacher with Speaks to neighbor! 


another pupil —| 





FIG. 4 


146 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


tity and quality. Reference to the behavior record of March 11 
shows her outstanding faults: She is still too much interested 
in her neighbors, and she is inclined to depend somewhat on the 
teacher. By concentrating on these points, the teacher can rap- 
idly train her to full voluntary absorption. 

Neither girl exhibits the dawdling profile of the pupil pic- 
tured in Figure r. 

Observations were made on these two pupils by a regular 
teacher two months after Miss Morgan’s last observation. The 
new observations covered fifty minutes instead of twenty min- 


TABLE VIII 


May i5 
Percentage of application........ 89 
Number of distractions.......... 7 
Mean span of application........ 156 


Range in span of application..... 10-620 





utes, and the test conditions were therefore much more exacting. 
Tabulation of results is presented in Table VIII. 

The numbers of distractions in the May profiles are reduced 
to the number per twenty minutes, in order to make them com- 
parable with the numbers shown by the January, February, and 
March profiles. Otherwise the figures for May are on a basis of 
fifty minutes. 

During the period which elapsed between March 11 and 
May I5, no training whatever was given. The sustained appli- 
cation shown by the profiles was purely that which had been 
established earlier. The distinctly better record made on May 
16 may very probably have been due to the fact that the pupils 
discovered that they were under observation once more and 
spurted. Nevertheless, if we compare the records of May 15 
with those of March 11 and then with those of January 22-23, 


SUSTAINED APPLICATION 147 


A. Feb. 7 20 minutes B. Feb. 7 


Rubs eyes and watches [ 


teacher 
Conversation 

Relief 
Relief points points 

Talks to girls 


Fic. 5 


148 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


there can be little doubt that we have here a true learning prod- 
uct—a volitional adaptation. 

It will be recalled that at the beginning of the period of train- 
ing, A was one of the slowest pupils in the class. As a matter of 
fact, she was consistently one of the slowest three. At the end of 
the period, there were only three pupils who learned more rap- 
idly. At the beginning, B was somewhat below the middle of the 
class; at the end, she was somewhat better for she was among 
the eleven of a class of twenty-four who worked most rapidly. 
More than that, the class group had been drawn somewhat 
closer together by simply training one of the slowest pupils out 
of her bad habits of work, thus effecting not only substantial 
progress in the education of an individual but likewise an econo- 
my in the group teaching of a class. To the extent of improve- 
ment in one laggard, mastery for the group became more possi- 
ble, the need of sectioning the group was decreased, and better 
progress for the group as a whole became possible. 

A represents a simple case of corrective teaching. She is not 
handicapped by gaps in her intellectual background, by physical 
inhibitions, by low mentality, nor by any other of a multitude of 
possible obstacles to learning. All that was needed was to cor- 
rect her scatter-brain ways. B presents a slightly different con- 
dition for she was somewhat weak in arithmetic. Nevertheless, 
with a small improvement in her sustained application, she rises 
into the half of the class which works more rapidly and, as a 
matter of fact, at optimum speed. She is still subject to improve- 
ment in correctable details. 

It is far from true that training always turns out this way. 
Sometimes we find a pupil who is a definite remedial case in the 
whole volitional field—usually a spoiled child. Other and addi- 
tional measures are then required. Again a pupil is found who, 
in spite of poor sustained application, does creditable work. 
Usually the indication is that he has not enough to do and should 
either be transferred to a faster section or interested in a volun- 
tary project. The crux of good teaching is not to accept the pro- 


SUSTAINED APPLICATION 149 


A. March 11 20 minutes B. March 11 


Slow in starting 


Interrupted by neigh- 
bor 


Interrupted by neigh- 
bor 


Conversation 
Speaks to neighbor 


Waits for teacher 


Neighbor interrupts 


Watches teacher 


Speaks to neighbor 





Fic. 6 


150 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


file as it stands but rather to interpret it in terms of the pupil 
profiled. 

Should all pupils be subjected to the same individual train- 
ing? In theory, yes; in practice, it need not be necessary. In the 
first place, a considerable number train themselves. Further, the 
teacher can usually train the group in the same manner in which 
A has been trained. Suppose, for instance, after securing the 
profile of A for January 23, the teacher had placed the profile on 
the board, without naming the pupil, and had talked to the class 
as a whole much as he talked to A. With many of the pupils in a 
class containing many A’s, the improvement would have been as 
marked as in her case. The problem with every class, from the 
grade level at which pupils begin to study, onward, is to bring 
every pupil up to the level of the absorption profile, not only 
because that is a fundamental step in the pupil’s education and 
in developing his ability to study, but also because it necessarily 
brings about economy in the process of group instruction. In 
practice, the teacher can survey his class and determine by in- 
spection the pupils who need no specific training and likewise 
those who are in this respect problem cases. The latter being 
identified, corrective training is carried on in the manner which 
we have described. 

A record of sustained application is one of the first steps in 
the diagnosis of a remedial case assigned for special treatment. 
In a large percentage of such cases, poor application is asso- 
ciated with, if not originally responsible for, the maladjustment 
which eventually requires remedial treatment. This is particu- 
larly true when the maladjustment is purely experiential in char- 
acter, that is, where there are gaps or half-learnings in the edu- 
cational history. There is little likelihood of lasting adjustment 
unless this fundamental defect is corrected as well as the other 
defects which are the immediate occasion of trouble. 





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CHAPTER X 
INTRODUCTION TO OPERATIVE TECHNIQUE 


Y “operative technique” we mean that phase of the teach- 
B ing process in which the units of learning are developed 
in the class and in the individuals thereof. It includes 
presentations of one sort or another, the supervision of study, 
the testing of the pupils for the adaptations which the learning 
units contemplate, identification of pupil problems, and correc- 
tive teaching. Why distinguish different phases of the teaching 

process, such as control technique and operative technique? 
If we should lead ourselves thereby into the habit of looking 


upon the two phases as essentially disparate and successive, the 


effect would indeed be unfortunate. Good control technique is 
the foundation of good operative technique, but poor operative 
technique may make good control difficult or impossible. For 
instance, daily lesson-hearing is a poor form of operative tech- 
nique, and sustained attention is exceedingly difficult under that 
procedure. On the other hand, devotees of that view of interest 
which makes of it little more than educational pleasure-seeking 
frequently adopt an operative technique which buries the fun- 
damental volitional adaptations implied by sustained attention 
and sustained application under a mass of pupil self-indulgence. 
Their operative technique is often brilliant and showy, but es- 
sentially non-educative. And so the two phases of teaching are 
closely interrelated as is indeed administrative technique, to be 
discussed later, with both. Nevertheless, it is useful to distin- 
guish the several aspects of teaching for a variety of reasons, 
among which may be mentioned the following. 

In the first place, to do so enables us to think more clearly 
and more precisely about the process of teaching itself. It isa 
great help, in orderly and clear thinking about matters which are 


153 


154 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


at best complicated, to be able to analyze the subject of our 
thoughts in significant ways, to deal with each part by itself, and 
then to see the interrelationships of the several parts. 

In a practical sense, it is useful because it makes it easier 
to locate and correct teaching troubles. We have seen that the 
first step in dealing with a problem case, or indeed with a poor 
class, is to investigate the control technique. We can often cor- 
rect trouble at that point. If we find the control technique good, 
we can eliminate that whole region, and proceed successively to 
the fields of operative and administrative technique, each of 
which we shall find to be capable of analysis. 

The five types of teaching which we have enumerated in 
chapter vi are the subject matter of Part III. The differences in 
operative technique from type to type are a great deal more im- 
portant than the features common to all types, but we must note 
certain underlying general principles which are frequently vio- 
lated, with results fatal to that attainment of the learning units 
which we have called “mastery.” 


THE LEARNING CYCLE > 


The first of these principles we shall designate as the learn- 
ing cycle of stimulus, assimilation, and reaction. The cycle is 
apparently the process through which all adjustments to en- 
vironment at the level of human consciousness are made. That 
is to say, educational adaptations arise through the learning cy- 
cle. In order to make our meaning concrete, we may perhaps 
use that never failing source of illustration, the care of an auto- 
mobile. | 

After purchasing the first car, most of us go through rather 
a futile period of lesson-learning with the book of instructions. 
After a time, as we drive over the country roads, we become irri- 
tated by the unsatisfactory behavior of the machine. It skips, 
balks, and refuses to climb hills as it should. The stimulus cul- 
minates, and we resolve to find out what is the matter. Now 
follows a period of experience-getting or assimilation. We exam- 





OPERATIVE TECHNIQUE 155 


ine the engine, read the book of instructions, discuss our trou- 
bles with our friends, vaguely experiment with this feature and 
that, reflecting at every step. Finally, the explanation dawns 
upon us, and assimilation culminates. We now react to our the- 
ory, make the appropriate adjustment in the mechanism, and 
peace once more enters the soul. We have acquired a new intel- 
lectual attitude to that general region of automobile mechanics 
from which the stimulus came. When the same symptoms recur 
later, we proceed directly and intelligently to remedy the trou- 
ble. Now, we might have balked the learning process at either 
of two points. After experiencing the stimulus, we might have 
driven the car into a garage and paid for having it adjusted. We 
should have restored our mental equilibrium, so far as that par- 
ticular experience was concerned, but we should have learned 
nothing. Quite likely we should have acquired a stimulus in the 
field of economics. Again, after having become satisfied with 
our explanation, we might have employed a mechanic to correct 
the trouble. Our learning would have remained a vague memory 
of an experience. When we have located trouble, accounted for 
it, and eliminated it ourselves, the whole emotional coloring is 
quite different from that which is experienced when we have 
stopped with our assimilative hypothesis. We experience a sense 
of reality and assurance. 

The vital importance of the reaction member of the cycle as 
a part of the learning process can be realized by most teachers, 
if they will reflect upon their intellectual grasp of what they 
have taught as compared with their hold upon what they have 
covered in school or college but never taught. We often make a 
subject our own for the first time when we teach it. The expla- 
nation is found in the principle that then for the first time we 
pass through the réaction member of the learning cycle. 

Schoolroom procedure frequently omits the stimulus mem- 
ber. The pupil is brought into the presence of the new learning 
in a purely passive state, without curiosity, desire, or any other 
immediate incentive. He delves into the experience which is as- 


156 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


sumed to be appropriate without mental focalization upon the 
learning unit intended by the teacher. He may encounter a stim- 
ulus in the study period which will start a learning cycle, but 
whether or not the learning process thus started will lead to the 
learning intended is largely a matter of chance. 

Experience which might be assimilation under systematic 
teaching is seldom omitted, but, under the textbook, daily-lesson 
practice, such experience is seldom focused upon the unit of 
learning intended. Performance at the daily task is mistaken for 
study. Again, if any learning results, it is casual rather than 
systematic, and directed to a definite learning objective. It may 
well be that we have here the fundamental explanation of the 
pedagogical phenomena noted in chapter iv in our discussion of 
lesson-learning, and perhaps the explanation of the chance dis- 
tribution of pupil attainments so often encountered in the 
schools and thought by some to be the inevitable characteristic 
of group learning. 

The reaction member is commonly omitted altogether, until 
some chance experience in life calls for the relearning of the ma- 


terial studied in school and the establishment of the adaptation _ 
in a real reaction. Such is apparently the case when we come to 


teach half-learned principles or processes, already used in illus- 
tration. ) 
We can scarcely hope to establish the learning cycle, in the _ 
more or less artificial conditions of the schoolroom, in the vigor 
which characterizes it when it occurs under natural conditions. 
Nevertheless we can do much. After all, learning under the hit- 
or-miss conditions of nature is a wasteful affair, and the individ- 
ual is perhaps only slightly more likely to learn the truth than to 
learn falsehood. On the other hand, the learning of the school — 
can be made systematic, the needed objectives can be conscious- 


ly and definitely selected, and what the learning of the school 


loses in point of vigor can be much more than made up in the 
systematic methods which the school is able to employ. In the _ 





OPERATIVE TECHNIQUE 154 


operative technique with which we shall deal, an effort is made 
to give due heed to the requirements of the learning cycle. The 
cycle is much more obvious in the science type, in which indeed 
it is perhaps most imperative. It is only less obvious in the ap- 
preciation and practical-arts types. In the language arts and 
pure practice, the three members of the cycle tend to coalesce, 
but they are none the less present and their importance cannot 
safely be ignored. 


PRINCIPLE OF INITIAL DIFFUSE MOVEMENTS 


The second of the important general principles upon which 
operative technique in all the types of teaching is based is the 
principle of initial diffuse movements. The operation of the 
principle can perhaps be most clearly pictured by an illustration 
from the pure-practice type, learning to skate let us say. In the 
learner’s early attempts, his whole body passes through a series 
of violent contortions. Not only do his legs perform random 
movements unrelated to the ultimate needs of the art, but his 
arms swing wildly, his body jerks backward and forward in fu- 
tile attempts to maintain equilibrium, his face quite likely is 
contorted in grimaces, he repeatedly loses balance and falls. 
The expert bystander gives him specific instructions which are 
not only useless but irritating. He perseveres, however, and 
soon his movements begin to co-ordinate, the useless are elimi- 
nated, and eventually he can skate. He has reached what we 
may call the ‘skating adaptation.” If now he wishes to become 
expert, he must begin to acquire skill at the level of his adapta- 
tion through conscious refinements and practice. 

The working of the principle is perhaps best seen in the 
learning of ordinary neuro-muscular adjustments, but it applies 
equally to learning in all types. The infant in learning to talk 
gives us a particularly good illustration. For a time he apparent- 
ly tries to talk with his whole body. When he later acquires a 
foreign tongue, though his unregulated movements may be less 


158 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


diffuse, he learns, if he learns at all, in much the same blunder- 
ing fashion. The pupil who grows into an appreciation of a 
superior quality of reading material does so through long experi- 
mentation with relatively inferior material which for a long time 
meets his fancy. The student who grapples with a law of phys- 
ics, or a movement in history, or a principle in teaching, makes 
it his own only after much vague experience-getting, catching 
a meaning here, failing to get one there, reflecting, and finally 
catching the vision from which all nonessentials have been elim- 
inated. 

The principle is frequently violated in teaching because of 
the teacher’s obsession for having everything right the first time. 
The teacher of handwriting in the early grades who identifies 
the elements of successful penmanship and builds up a series of 
artificial skills out of these simply produces a lesson-learner 
whose handwriting usually goes to pieces in high school, as na- 
ture reasserts her demand that the pupil shall build his adapta- 
tion on his inherited complex of neuro-muscular tendencies, in 
much the way in which he has built his characteristic walking 
gait. The teacher of English composition who conceives it to be 
her mission to train pupils in correct usage apart from an abun- 
dant volume of free writing, all of it designed to express mean- 
ing and most of it inexpressibly crude for a long time, usually © 
fails to secure either correct or incorrect expression. Far better — 
that the pupil should say “ain’t” than that he should say nothing 
at all. The teacher of mathematics who inculcates a principle, ‘ 
hears his class recite, grades their responses, and passes on to 


another principle, without giving ample opportunity for experi- _ 
mentation with the application of the principle, commonly suc- 
ceeds in producing pupils whose mathematics is good until 


examination day but not beyond. The law of initial diffuse _ 
movements spells patience, abundant assimilative practice or — 


experience for the pupil, and a realization that early blunders © | 


are signs of learning health rather than evidences of failure. 





OPERATIVE TECHNIQUE 159 


IDENTIFICATION OF THE TEACHING OBJECTIVES 


The third of our cardinal principles is identification of the 
objectives of teaching. The principle seems so obvious as hard- 
ly to be worth noting. Nevertheless, it is so commonly ignored 
or misconceived in practice that we have felt justified in devot- 
ing a considerable part of this volume to emphasis upon its im- 
portance and to tracing the nature of the various kinds of ob- 
jectives. 

While there is apparently marked progress in the critical 
study and evaluation of the objectives of the curriculum, there 
is little evident progress in determining the teaching objectives 
implied by those of the curriculum. It is one thing, for instance, 
to decide whether or not the use of the French language is a de- 
sirable curriculum objective; it is quite another to fix in our 
minds the specific learning and teaching objectives which the 
use of the language implies, if we teach it at all. Again, it is one 
thing to conclude that ability to organize and use social facts 
effectively in arriving at conclusions is a desirable piece of cur- 
- riculum content; it is quite another to set up a series of teaching 
objectives through which the desired ability can definitely be se- 
cured in the individual. 

In the great majority of classrooms which one visits and in 
the great majority of programs of study which one reads, there 
are, strictly speaking, no teaching objectives set up. We are apt 
to find instead a list of things to be done, or a syllabus of ground 
to be covered, evidently in the hope that the pupil will learn 
something as he passes through the routine. “‘We have fractions 
in Grade V”’ or “‘College English in Grade XII” is about as near 
_assuch schools approach the identification of their teaching ob- 
jectives. | | 

Now, if we look upon all learning, and indeed education it- 
self, as a series of adaptations to be made in the learner, we must 
evidently have definite and comprehensible objectives to be 
mastered. We cannot apply our formula, ‘Teach, test, and re- 
teach,” unless we can have a definite unit of learning to which 


160 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


it can be applied. In whatever type we are teaching, the critical 
question always is, What new attitude or ability am I trying to 
bring about in these pupils? not, What is the textbook content 
to be covered this term? The objectives of teaching change from 
type to type as the nature of the adaptations desired changes, 
but always and everywhere the starting-point of operative tech- 
nique is the determination of the teaching objectives. Nor is it 
an easy matter. Most of them can be found only after thorough 
study, the application of.all the insight of which the teacher is 
possessed, and then experimental teaching. 


DIRECT TEACHING 


The fourth of the general principles which are applicable in 
all types of operative technique is that of direct teaching. 
This term has found its place in our pedagogical terminology 
in its application to a method in foreign-language teaching. 
There it signifies the development of the power to use the lan- 
guage as a form of discourse by practice in such use rather than 
an approach through the study of language structure. The ap- 
propriateness of the term “direct method” lies in the principle 
that the method proposes to attack the adaptation desired, in 
this case a reading or speaking or writing ability, directly instead 
of through an intermediate form of learning, in this case lan- 
guage structure or grammar. The latter is in effect one form 
of lesson-learning and attainment of the adaptation in that way 
is, as we have seen, a matter of chance. People who have expe- 
rienced the process in their own school careers can usually bear 
witness to the truth of the assertions just made. Direct teaching 
is not, however, confined to language learning. It applies equally 
well to all learning. In the practical arts it has been very largely 
the theory of teaching used from the beginning. In the shop or 
the dressmaking-room, pupils do not read or listen to lectures 
about the processes which they are desired to learn and pass ex- 
aminations on what they can remember. They learn “by doing,” 


OPERATIVE TECHNIQUE 161 


which is another expression which has crept into the terminol- 
ogy of teaching and which implies the same pedagogical princi- 
ple which we find elsewhere signified by the term “direct meth- 
od.” The principle is precisely as applicable to the teaching of 
science or mathematics or history as to the teaching of French 
or auto mechanics. In the first three subjects just mentioned, 
the contrast is between centering all teaching and study directly 
upon a major unit of understanding, such, for instance, as ““The 
Germ Theory of Disease,” or ‘““The Westward Movement,” and 
assigning indefinite reading material and exercises from a text- 
book in the hope that the pupils will eventually know their his- 
tory or their biology. 

Teaching which aims at the objective directly, records pupil 
performance, and then passes on is however only half direct 
teaching. The more essential half is found in the principle of 
corrective teaching or the application of the testing and reteach- 
ing members of the mastery formula. Apart from corrective in- 
struction, there is fundamentally no systematic teaching at all 
but only the administration of one form of intelligence test. 


STUDY 


The fifth of our fundamental principles is that of study. 
We have stated and often reiterated the principle that in so far 
as the secondary school fails to train pupils how to study, devel- 
ops in them the inclination to attack their world through study 
and finally makes them capable of formulating their own prob- 
lems and studying at the level of self-dependence, it fails alto- 
gether. Apart from this contribution, it might as well leave them 
with the primary adaptations and trust them to secure adjust- 
ment to their world through the aid of the newspaper, the pe- 
riodical, and such books as they can find. 

Now, a large part of the contact which the pupil makes with 
the present-day school is not study at all, but what we may per- 
haps call “education by propaganda.” The school-health pro- 


162 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


gram is a good illustration. Here we have all sorts of talks by 
teachers, posters, lithographs, even vaudeville performances, in 

the interest of good health. In so far as the objective is to induce 
pupils to take better care of their health, the objective in itself 

is worthy and the technique is certainly effective. Other forms 

of this sort of thing are thrift campaigns, good-English weeks, 

' selling Latin to the pupils, patriotism, cleanup and paint weeks, 

the city beautiful, and so on in an endless series. Far be it from 

us to decry either the worthiness of most of these purposes or the 
technique used in securing them. In many instances, that is the | 
most economical way in which an immediately desired objective _ 
can be realized. Only, it is not training pupils to study and not ~ 
leading them into the inclination and the ability to attack their | 
world through study. In so far as the school conceives such de- 
vices to be the essence of teaching, it will fail in its supreme task 
of generating citizens who are capable of independent thinking. 
The psychology employed is that of the advertiser, and it is a ; 
sorry society which is borne along at the beck of a multitude of ( 
special and often selfish interests each seeking its own ends 
through the use of advertisements and other forms of propa- 
ganda. 

Each of the five types of teaching discussed in the chapters 
which follow has its own method of study, ranging in importance 
from that of the science type, in which learning is very largely 
a matter of study, to pure practice, in which study is at its sim- 
plest and minimum. In each of the five types, the mission of the 
teacher is in the end to put the pupil in effective control of the 
learning methods peculiar to the type. At the level of education- _ 
al self-dependence, the student can use the method of study © 
which is appropriate to his problem, and he has the resolution 
needed to launch him in new learning. If he needs a new process 
in mathematics, he knows how to secure command thereof. If — 
he needs the use of a new language, he knows how to acquire it 
in the most expeditious and economical fashion. i 

















OPERATIVE TECHNIQUE 163 


APPERCEPTIVE MASS 

A sixth principle fundamental to all operative technique is 
that of the establishment of adequate apperceptive mass. 

We learn the new in terms of the old; hence the pre-eminent 
justification of the term “assimilation.” It is probably impos- 
sible to acquire either new ideas or new abilities absolutely de 
novo. The new must have a point of connection in the existing 
experience or else in the existing instinctive equipment of the 
learner. It follows that, other things being equal, the pupil will 
learn most readily and most effectively whose background of 
early experience is most nearly a complete horizon, such that 
any line of needed adjustment will always find its appropriate 
starting-point somewhere in the pupil’s apperceptive mass of 
organized or unorganized intellectual content, information, and 
incipient interests. 

It is altogether probable that individual differences in learn- 
ing capacity, which are so noticeable among the pupils of any 
class, are traceable to differences in apperceptive background 
as much as to any one cause. Some children come from homes in 
which there is an abundance of reading material and a tradition 
of discussing books in the family circle. Others have scarcely 
encountered the printed page outside of school. Some have had 
the varied experiences of village and small-city life. The expe- 
rience of others is of the narrow sort peculiar to the city streets 
_ or to the meager environment of an isolated farm. Others still, 
quite likely some of those who have enjoyed the good fortune of 
homes of abundant reading, have had only the restricted expe- 
_ rience of the large-city apartment house and yard with an occa- 
sional trip to a city park. The experiential horizon of some is a 
complete circle. They have enjoyed wholesome, healthy lives in 
a normal environment of child society and contact with nature. 
In the cases of others the horizon is simply a more or less re- 
stricted segment of the circle. Unless the deficiency is made 
good, they can at the best be only specialists from the beginning. 
Outside their segment they are too ignorant to learn. 


164 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


Some children bring to school not only restricted, segmented, 
experiential backgrounds but apperceptive masses which are 
perverted as well. 

Through overmuch travel and hotel life or a surfeit of mov- 
ing pictures, some have had such an excess of experience that 
definite problems in the learning process are created. In the lab- 
oratory, an occasional reading problem in the primary school is 
traced to such an excess of artificial experience that any possible 
learning to read is inhibited by the child’s blasé lack of curiosity 
about what he reads. Ih content, his experience requires the 
reading material which is suited, perhaps, to the junior high 
school. In reading ability, he is at the same stage as his con- 
temporaries in the kindergarten or first grade, that is, he cannot 
read at all. 

The child of the slum, or of the vicious home and neighbor- 
hood outside the slum, is apt to bring to school such a stock of 
perverted ideas that much of his later learning, instead of pro- 
ducing the adjustments intended, produces instead curiously 
perverted adjustments. Nor are learning perversions confined 
to the classes just named. Especially in the adolescent period, 
careless and thoughtless and immature teachers or parents 
sometimes allow children to come in contact with vicious litera- 
ture or with revelations, more or less scientific in character, 
which the children are not yet sufficiently mature to assimilate 
and justly evaluate, with the result that the young people come 
to build up twisted apperceptive masses purely pathological in 
character. To such, even murder may look reasonable and 
proper. 

A very fundamental condition of effective operative tech- 
nique is then the establishment in all pupils of apperceptive 
masses which are normal and so well rounded that the pupil will 
not encounter learning to which he is an entire stranger. The 
child experience must further be brought into what may perhaps 
be called “literary form.” In the case of children of the city 
streets, especially, the experience has been received and is ex- 


OPERATIVE TECHNIQUE 165 


pressed in the form of a patois. The child has a patois mind, as 
far as content is concerned, and the books which he begins to 
encounter belong to another world. 

The capacity of the school to fill up the rich and wholesome 
round of child experience which is outside of books is of course 
limited. Children who grow up in villages, or thickly settled 
rural districts, and in small cities are, other things being equal, 
the fortunate ones of their kind. The great city and the isolated 
farm alike will probably never be able to give a satisfactory sub- 
stitute, although the modern city with its playgrounds and parks 
does the best it can. 

We shall perhaps be justified in using some space to point 
out ways in which the school life as a whole can be organized to 
meet this very fundamental need. 

In the first place, either an effective kindergarten system or 
a satisfactory substitute is essential, and, as far as the present 
author knows, no satisfactory substitute has been developed. 
The modern kindergarten, divested of the earlier mysticism, 
provides in substance what the best of homes should provide and 
ordinarily cannot. In its motor activities, it supplies a kind of 
experience which many city children entirely lack and to which 
most are strangers in greater or less degree. In its stories, ex- 
cursions, and other similar activities, it supplies an informa- 
tional background which the cultivated home of leisure could 
doubtless supply but which it seldom does supply. In its con- 
trolled group life it furnishes a background for the primary so- 
cial adaptations which no home, in this day of small families, 
can ever hope to set up and which few homes in which large 
families are found are qualified to supply. To be sure, the neigh- 
borhood life in sections in which there are several cultivated 
families is sometimes able to provide something of a substitute, 
but it is to be noted that such sections are usually the most ear- 
nest advocates of the kindergarten. The tenement neighbor- 
hoods with their swarming children are apt to provide simply a 
social jungle in which child individualism runs rampant. The 


266 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


kindergarten is or should be the dominant feature of the pri- 
mary school. The present tendency to characterize the period as 
“kindergarten-primary” is a happy augury. 

In the second place, the process of teaching children to read, 
in its early stages, should be related to the actual experience of 
the children concerned, and in its later stages the books supplied 
to the children should be rich in informational content. Experi- 
mentation shows that children learn to read most effectively and 
economically in that way rather than by perusal of the history of 
the feuds of the family cat with the rodent pests of the house- 
hold, or of the doings of the phonetic Dan, Fan, and Nan. If the 
school will come to realize that the essential purpose of teaching 
children to read is to teach them to want to read rather than to 
develop proficiency in oral reading for exhibition purposes, it 
will provide, even in the primary-rooms, an abundance of free 
reading, books of all grades of difficulty which individual chil- 
dren can use, aS curiosity and their newly acquired ability 
prompt. 

Third, every school should center about a library or read- 
ing-room plentifully stocked with children’s reading of an in- 
formational character as well as with child literature. In the 
-high school and junior college, this library may well contain 
some material of a somewhat formidable character. If foreign 
language is taught, then the library should have an abundance 
of informational material in the languages taught. Children 
should be released for free reading whenever opportunity serves, 
and we shall find many such opportunities. The pupils should 
have free access to the shelves and not be inhibited by the for- 
malism of the typical library routine. Doubtless this practice 
will result in the loss of some books but loss can be reduced to a 
minimum, and the comparatively small annual cost traceable to 
this item is, after all, a productive cost. Every such room should 
be in charge of a teacher especially qualified by natural gifts or 
special training for the purpose. 

Much might be written concerning the selection of books 


OPERATIVE TECHNIQUE 167 


for such free-reading tables and rooms. We shall comment on 
but two points. 

As soon as children learn to read, they are apt to find contact 
with that destroyer of all intellectual vigor, the cheap juvenile. 
We have not in mind the positively vicious book, but rather the 
type which is merely of passing interest and a portrayal of an 
impossible boy or girl life. The practical effect of such books 
seems to be that, far from creating a desire for better things, 
they lead the pupil into an actual intellectual perversion in 
which he will read nothing which requires mental effort of any 
sort. The school cannot prevent children from falling victims 
to the unwise selections of books which parents make and the 


_cupidity of bookstores makes possible, but it can avoid estab- 


lishing such contacts itself. By wise selection and guidance, it 


can establish reading interests which will in many cases substi- 


tute genuine interests for this form of childish self-indulgence. 
Another type of book which should find no place in the 
school library shelves, particularly in the high school, is the 
decadent literature of which many sex novels, poems, and 
dramas are types. Whatever value the critic of literary crafts- 
manship may attach to such material, it certainly has no place in 
education. There is much of the beast still left in humanity, and 
the portrayal of the beast may require as perfect a sense of lit- 
erary structure as does the revelation of the ideal, but that is no 
reason for stimulating the primitive instincts of developing 
youth, which it is the highest function of education to sublimate. 
Much reading of such books seems to achieve the educational 
result which one would antecedently expect; it adjusts the young 
person backward toward the primitive type. He comes to ex- 
hibit the moral attitudes characteristic of the remote pagan 
world. In some cases, apparently, there is induced such a com- 
plete adaptive reversion that the result is tantamount to insan- 
ity. Again, the school cannot prevent children from coming in 
contact with such books, but it can avoid providing the contacts 


168 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


itself and it can furnish a counteracting and constructive type of 
reading. 

In the third place, the school should furnish an abundance 
of extra-classroom informational and other educational stimuli, 
of which the following are illustrations. 

The thoughtful and resourceful room teacher maintains a 
bulletin board on which she collects from time to time a wealth 
of clippings and pictures of an informational type calculated not 
only to add to the pupil’s apperceptive mass but also to arouse 
intellectual interests of various sorts. The elementary-school 
reading-room especially should emphasize this feature. Most 
high-school classrooms can effectively serve the same purpose, 
and of course the high-school library can elaborate almost in- 
definitely. Even in the junior college, with students who are 
high-school graduates and in one of the subjects supposed to be 
the least susceptible of this kind of elaboration, namely, modern 
language, the bulletin board has been found to be a popular and 
useful aid. 

Perhaps the most comprehensive of the schoolroom subjects 
in its service of educative adjustment is geography, and, because 
of its very comprehensiveness, it is singularly dependent upon 
the building up of an extensive informational background. It is 
a sheer impossibility to teach geography effectively with a single 
text or series of texts. Hence, there should be presented to the 
pupil, especially in the elementary school, an abundance of geo- 
graphical material apart from the textbooks and outside the 
geography period. Before the days of rolled-up maps, when 
maps were a familiar and permanent feature of every school- 
room, hanging always in plain view on its walls, the pupil ac- 
quired a foundation for geographical thinking which is seldom 
found in the modern school. Whenever the pupil looked up from 
his work, his eyes rested on maps which exhibited the main fea- 
tures of the earth’s land forms and political divisions. Before 
long he had acquired a series of visual images to which much of 


OPERATIVE TECHNIQUE 169 


his geographical thinking would naturally refer. Not so with a 
pupil whose visual imagery in geography is the vague and un- 
certain thing which has been acquired by occasional glances at 
small and inadequate maps in the textbook and rare glimpses of 
maps briefly unrolled from the cases on the wall. 

What applies to geography applies with equal force to 
charts, tables, lithographs, and the like, illustrative of history, 
mathematics, natural science, and public health. 

The school playground is of course an obvious illustration 
of the extra-classroom appurtenances which contribute to the 
elaboration of the pupil’s apperceptive mass. It is hence a mis- 
take to think of the playground as being valuable only for phys- 
ical-education purposes. If well conducted, it furnishes perhaps 
the most essential segment of the pupil’s experiential back- 
ground and thus contributes heavily to sane adjustment in cul- 
tural lines which seem remote. Similarly, it is one of the most 
available resources for the fundamental correction of perverted 
experience. 

It is a commonplace to note that the growing child, well up 
into adolescence, requires a deal of constructive activity. Left 
to himself, the normal boy is always making something. The 
rural or village home is apt to provide an abundance of such op- 
portunities, but not always. The large city home seldom does so 
or can. The modern school attempts to meet the need in its man- 
ual training, but classes in manual training meeting once or 
twice a week at set periods can accomplish little although they 
may accomplish something. Rather should the school shop be 
open all day and before and after school for boys who find op- 
portunity to work there, and this should continue throughout 
the school career, from the time when the little boy wishes to 
make a “scooter” of his own until the time when he uses the 
engine lathe for the construction of a piece of apparatus which 
he wishes to use in his voluntary project in physics. The paral- 
lel opportunity for girls will readily suggest itself. 


170 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


To repeat the schoolmaster’s maxim: ‘We are continually 
underrating the ability of children and overestimating their ex- 
perience.” The rich and varied experience-getting which we 
have urged as our sixth fundamental to operative technique is 
the appropriate method of meeting the requirement. 

With these underlying principles in mind, we shall now turn 
to the discussion of each of the five types and to the teaching and 
study peculiar to each. 


SS 





CHAPTER XI 
THE UNIT IN PHYSICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCE 


HE learning process in the science type is essentially re- 
- flection upon experience. It is the most common form in 


which the process of higher adjustment of the human be- 
ing is found, whether it be in the diffuse, casual, wasteful, and 
often cruel experience which nature provides in the affairs of 
everyday life, or in the systematic selected experience of the 
school, made possible by the accumulation of a body of rational- 
ized and systematized experience which we call “science.” The 
most that the school can do is to bring together appropriate and 
selected bodies of experience which themselves interpret and ex- 
plain different aspects of the environment, and arrange such 
experiences in the form in which reflection can be stimulated 
and made most economical. Such is the essence of teaching in 
this type. The school’s most, however, is nearly all; it makes the 
difference between civilization and the rule of the jungle. 

The product of learning here is a new attitude toward the 
world in the form of understanding. The individual can now in- 
terpret and explain some things which were before incompre- 
hensible and toward which his attitude was the naive and irra- 
tional attitude of passive acceptance characteristic of the child 
and primitive man. In brief, his attitude toward what he has 
studied becomes intelligent, whereas before it was unintelligent. 

The unit in the sciences, to which the teaching process is di- 
rectly applied, is some significant and comprehensive part or as- 
pect of the environment or of the science which is being studied. 
The unit mastered is a step in the immediate and direct adjust- 
ment of the individual to his world. For instance, a unit some- 
times employed in the teaching of elementary science is “The 
Water Supply.” Let us analyze. 


171 


172 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


The unit is a significant and important aspect of the world 
of well-nigh every individual who lives in a civilized society. It 
is inclusive of the whole aspect and not a fragment. The con- 
trasting approach is often a study of the principles of hydro- 
statics and hydraulics and of the practical applications thereof 
in pumps of different kinds and in systems of gravity distribu- 
tion. The teaching technique is usually a series of lessons about 
physical principles and their application. Under the lesson- 
learning technique, it is matter of chance whether or not the 
pupil really masters the principles themselves. Granted that he 
masters the principles, it is still a matter of chance whether or 
not he grasps their application to an understanding of this or 
any other aspect of the world of reality. 

Now selection of a comprehensive unit like this and direct 
learning of the unit requires mastery of all the principles which 
are essential to the appropriate understanding, but only the es- 
sential principles. For instance, the general principles upon 
which pumps operate will be one element in acquiring the unit 
learning, but not a study of all kinds of pumps. In the former 
case, we use the applied principle of the pump to establish an in- 
telligent attitude toward a familiar body of experience; in the 
other, there would be only the accumulation of a body of special 
knowledge, which tends soon to become mere content in mem- 
ory. In connection with the learning process, a great many facts 
are encountered. For instance, the pupil learns that a cubic foot 
of water under certain normal conditions has a definite and con- 
stant weight. He probably notes the weight in pounds. It is not 
very important that the non-professional individual should re- 
member the weight, but it is part of the ultimate understanding 
that he should think of water and other fluids as having constant 
weight. If he later needs the factual information, it is a simple 
matter to look it up. As a matter of fact, however, full and ac- 
tual understanding proves to be a powerful mnemonic, for it is 
apt to carry along with it the important facts which were en-— 
countered in the achievement of the large understanding. 


PHYSICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCE 173 


The unit which we have been discussing is found in the field 
of elementary science at perhaps about the seventh- or eighth- 
grade level for most pupils. Later it becomes desirable that the 
learner should master the elements of physics, chemistry, and 
biology as organized sciences. Possessed of a body of intelligent 
attitudes toward those aspects of the common life which are in- 
terpreted by elementary or general science, the pupil has become 
adjusted but he has not acquired intellectual adaptability. He 
can understand his world as it is, but not the changing world. 
He has expanded and organized his apperceptive mass, but he 
has not yet acquired the tools of systematic study in the field of 
the natural sciences. For the purposes of general education, 
toward the end of the secondary period, the sciences become 
properly methods of thinking, of attacking and studying the en- 
vironment. Hence, the senior high school or junior college stu- 
dent encounters units which are significant aspects of science 
rather than significant aspects of the environment. As an illus- 
tration of a unit at this higher level, let us consider the unit ‘“Ox- 
idation” in chemistry. 

We might devote several days, or weeks, to acquiring infor- 
mation about oxygen, its properties, its behavior, its place in the 
elementary structure of matter, and much else besides. No 
teaching is involved but only experience-getting on the part of 
the pupil. Whether or not the pupil will thereby come to focus 
all his information and his understanding of isolated principles 
upon a vision of oxidation as one of the most important environ- 
mental controls and one of the key-processes in elementary 
chemical thought will be a matter of chance. If he does so, we 
are content to classify him as a “bright student” with probable 
talent in chemistry and to conclude that the Lord never intended 
the others to be educated as far as chemistry is concerned. Oxi- 
dation is here the significant aspect of the science and acquaint- 
anceship with oxygen and its peculiar character but one of the 
elements through which understanding of the unit is built up. 
The latter may very well be assimilative material in building up 


174 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


intelligent attitudes in the other units as well. The other chem- 
ical elements may or may not be serviceable as assimilative ma- 
terial in the teaching of significant units. Their description and 
properties as recorded in the books is organized knowledge 
which requires no teaching. 

On these principles are the units in the organized sciences 
selected. Each must meet the test, Is this a significant contribu- 
tion to the pupil’s intellectual tools of attack upon that aspect of 
the world to which this science furnishes the key? 

To illustrate the nature of the unit in all the subjects which 
are teachable under the science type would require more space 
than we have available. A series of courses for which unitary 
organizations have been worked out is exhibited later in the 
present chapter. We shall ask the reader, however, to bear with 
us for one further illustration at this point, and for that purpose 
we present the unit, “Liberty under the Law,” chosen from a 
senior high school course in social science. 

There is sometimes offered at about the level indicated a 
course described as American history and civil government, or 
perhaps constitutional history of the United States, or, it may 
be, simply civics or political science. The justification of such 
courses is usually the vague plea that young people “ought to 
know something” about their own country and its institutions. 
Granted the justice of the plea, there is indubitably required to 
meet the need not one but several courses. The problem at bot- 
tom evidently is to build up in the younger generation a series of 
intelligent attitudes toward government in general and toward 
American civil institutions in particular. There is hence at once 
suggested the question, What are the significant aspects of gov- 
ernment and of our civil institutions toward which intelligent at- 
titudes must be established? As we canvass the field, we find 
comparatively few such major aspects but each is of critical im- 
portance and together they constitute the units of our course or 
courses. One such is the unit which we cite. 

It would perhaps be hard to think of a more necessary adap- 


PHYSICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCE 175 


tation in the field of general education than development of the 
attitude toward popular government and life in the Anglo-Saxon 
civil state which the unit implies. And so the unit is set up as a 
direct teaching objective, the subjective correlate of which in the 
pupil is a right intellectual attitude toward a political principle 
which many centuries of civil experimenting have demonstrated 
and handed down to him. He comes to see that civil liberty is, 
on the whole, a pretty definite and objective kind of thing, de- 
termined not by assertion but by conditions deeply rooted in the 
nature of things. In brief, he comes to sense the difference be- 
tween liberty and license. He realizes that civil law is properly 
something which legislatures should be endeavoring to discover 
rather than create, and that liberty and the law go together. His 
own civic attitude is definitely modified; he becomes capable of 
more intelligent political opinions. 

In the process of developing the unit, the teacher will make 
a great deal of use of material, historical and other, which serves 
to illustrate the unit. He will use a great deal of direct verbal 
explanation. But, in the end, learning consists in attaining the 
attitude aimed at and not a memory of the content of the docu- 
ments or other material used in developing the unit. As a matter 
of fact, however, here as in physical science we do tend to recall 
as knowledge the material which has proved critical in develop- 
ing the new attitude of which we ultimately become conscious. 
In testing the product of learning, the teacher focuses his test 
items upon the new attitude rather than upon the content which 
has been used in developing the unit. 

The contrasted treatment at its best is a study of perhaps 
Magna Charta and the other great liberty documents, the ob- 
jective of which is the content of a course. That is, the pupil 
must be tested upon his knowledge of the documents studied. 
If any adaptations at all arise, they are much more likely to be 
appreciations of the human figures involved—a result no doubt 
valuable in itselfi—than any specific and desirable social and 
civic attitude. The result is precisely analogous to that attained 


176 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


in elementary science when the principles of hydraulics and 
hydrostatics are studied rather than the water supply. The re- 
sult is erudition, and possibly some incidental moral growth, 
rather than social adjustment. At the worst, the contrasted 
treatment is a memoriter learning of the Federal Constitution, 
the results of which abide until examination day but no longer. 

There is thus pointed out the distinction which is critical be- 
tween the selection of the significant units of learning in subjects 
which belongs to the science type and the discussion of isolated 
principles which presumably might be focused upon such units 
but which in fact are not so focused. In most cases, such unfo- 
cused material which is found in our textbooks and in our teach- 
ing is there because of the persistence of the logical analysis 
stereotype brought over from the older psychology and because 
of failure to recognize the principle that learning has laws of 
its own which do not necessarily follow the lines of the logical 
exhibit of material. Perhaps the point can be made somewhat 
clearer by exhibiting differences in the organization of books. 

I have before me a treatise on what used to be called “‘phys- 
iological psychology.” It runs to twenty or more chapters, and 
each chapter is subdivided into from sixteen to thirty-six para- 
graphs. The chapters are for the most part simply logical divi- 
sions of the field, and the paragraphs in a similar sense are sim- 
ply logical subdivisions of the chapters. When a chapter gets to 
be too long, the author cuts it off and begins his next chapter 
under the heading, “Chapter XX—Continued.”’ It is exceeding- 
ly difficult for the reader to get anything more out of his reading 
than a series of unrelated, and therefore vague, notions. If the 
reader is fortunate enough to be a member of a class in which 
there is a teacher who organizes the material in a series of force- 
ful lectures and class discussions, then the text may prove useful 
as a reference-book and as assimilative material. It may prove 
useful, but it is not likely to, for the organization itself implies 
that the needed material at any particular point will prove 
meager. The points covered are too many for adequate illumi- 


PHYSICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCE 177 


nation of each point. A series of daily lessons from such a book 
will produce the learning situation which we have described and 
exhibited in chapter iv. 

The modern master of expository writing first formulates 
his central message. He then organizes an outline of the major 
points which he thinks will best convey the message. With his 
central message constantly in mind, he then develops his points 
in order. In the end his book holds together, and he convinces 
his reader. He thus tends to organize his material in terms of 
units of understanding rather than in the form of a traditional 
table of contents. In the new, the argument is focused upon the 
task of creating a new point of view in the reader; in the old, the 
book is organized in obedience to the logical arrangement of 
material and the reader is left to learn what he can. One creates 
a learning situation; the other does not. 

The critical difference between a true unit of learning and a 
mere chapter heading is then the difference between a significant 
and comprehensive aspect of the environment, or of a science, 
which can be understood, and a mere division of descriptive or 
expository subject matter which cannot be understood except in 
relation to other chapters which themselves stand in isolation. 
Often the mere name of what might be a unit suggests a division 
of the teaching into the topical, ground-to-be-covered routine. 
To borrow an illustration from the next chapter, ‘“The World- 
War” is often selected as a section of a course in modern history. 
Now a teacher who has an acute sense of the nature of a teach- 
ing unit in the science type can use properly and effectively 
whatever is potentially a unit regardless of the title it bears. 
Nevertheless, the title ““The World-War” suggests merely a nar- 
rative topic, and the unwary easily find themselves trying to 
teach or hear lessons upon a body of material which can doubt- 
less be read, and pondered at university level, but which cannot 
be directly understood at secondary level. If, however, we 
change the title and call the unit “Making the World Safe for 
Democracy,” or ‘““The End of Autocracy,” or “The Collapse of 


178 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


the European System,” or give it some other title which ex- 
presses the historian’s view of the nature of the conflict, a ques- 
tion is immediately raised in the mind of the student which calls 
for answer in terms of understanding. We thus secure a unit 
which is capable of being taught and mastered. ‘The World- 
War” suggests a topic; one of the other titles suggests a teach- 
ing unit. 

A matter of critical importance is the ability to distinguish 
between the unit and its assimilative material. In the illustra- 
tions which we have used, the isolated principles which explain 
the flow of liquids under different conditions or the behavior of 
the element oxygen, and isolated facts such as the weight of a 
cubic foot of water or the atomic weight of oxygen, constitute 
the assimilative material. Understanding of the water supply or 
of oxidation constitutes the unit which is the objective. Most of 
the textbooks in current use either fail to identify teachable 
units altogether or else they set forth too many units and are 
consequently limited in the amount of assimilative material 
which they can present. 

Teachers sometimes make the mistake of centering their 
thoughts upon the question, ‘‘What shall I include under this 
unit?” or “What are the minimal essentials of the unit?” Either 
question implies the table-of-contents notion of study material 
and the dominance in the teacher’s thinking of the information- 
to-be-remembered stereotype. The question which suggests the 
right conception of the nature of the unit and its assimilative 
material is, ““What material shall I focus upon this unit in order 
to bring about the appropriate understanding?” In response to 
the first question, we may indeed get minimal essentials of infor- 
mation which grouped together constitute a chapter. In re- 
sponse to the second question, we should get a series of elements 
of intelligibility, grasp of which, first in order and then in their 
interrelationships, constitutes the unit and generates the under- 
standing sought. 





PHYSICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCE 179 


The situation as a whole, can perhaps be visualized through 
diagrammatic aid (Fig. 7). 

The number of teachable units, in a given course or series 
of courses at secondary level, which is either necessary or desir- 
able is small, but the amount of assimilative material needed for 
each unit seems to be much greater than the ordinary textbook 
can well supply. This outcome is strictly in accordance with the 
principle of initial diffuse movements. The learner, who is still 
relatively immature in the whole field, requires a great deal of 


Direct teaching in oral pres 
entation focused upon the 
unit er 


Directed study of assimilative 
material which is focused upon 
the unit 






Test material focused upon the 


The new attitude implied by hat 4 
i earning product 


the unit 












FIG. 7 


groping over a large and significant experiential area before he 
can piece together the elements which illuminate the broad unit 
which he is seeking to understand, his own individual appercep- 
tive mass being what it is. The experienced teacher in the high 
school, the college, or the university frequently notes in an ear- 
nest student an expression of sudden illumination, and the latter 
perhaps ejaculates, ‘“‘Well, I have never really understood that 
until just now.” The truth seems to be that upon the point in 
question the student had never secured a mere spread of assimi- 
lative experience sufficient to establish the apperceptive con- 
nection between his own old experience and the new truth. 

The practical effect of failure to distinguish between the 
unit itself, the true learning and teaching objective, and its as- 
similative material is most notably manifest in the character of 
the tests employed. If the teacher’s mind is upon the assimila- 
tive material, he tends to test for the retention of isolated facts 
and principles rather than for mastery of the understanding im- 
plied by the unit. The principle is of course not peculiar to the 


180 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


science type. Its inconclusive and, in some respects vicious, 
character can perhaps be seen in the following illustration. 

In a given science course the teaching procedure is carried 
out upon the textbook-assignment basis, or some modification 
thereof, and in the course of a semester a great body of princi- 
ples and isolated facts is accumulated. The test is now upon the 
retention of such principles and facts. The test may be in the 
form of a sampling of ten questions, or some other convenient 
number, or it may be in the form of one of the more modern 
completion, or best-answer, or true-and-false tests. The result 
will be the familiar chance distribution because a complex of 
chance elements is the determining factor. If no corrective 
teaching has been done or is now done, the results will pass into 
the school history in the form of pupils some of whom have re- 
tained the material well, a majority vaguely, a smaller number 
poorly, and some not at all. If, however, corrective teaching is 
done, the chance distribution will be broken up and the problem 
cases separated. In the end, however, in either case, the intellec- 
tual content will be principles and facts in isolation not learned 
in terms of their functional use in the interpretation of some sig- 
nificant aspect of the environment. The performance may be 
impeccable, and yet the practical-arts teachers in the same 
school, or the science teachers at a higher level, complain that 
the pupils “do not know their physics, or chemistry, or biology, 
or economics.” The same set of pedagogical phenomena appears 
in other types of teaching. The pupil scores high in handwriting 
tests when he leaves the eighth grade, and in the tenth his writ- 
ing is a miserable apology for penmanship. A class of elemen- 
tary pupils wins praise at exhibitions for its remarkable draw- 
ing, and in the high school few of them rise above childish forms 
of graphic representation. The explanation is that in all these 
instances performance with assimilative material or experience 
has been to the fore and not the mastery of teachable and learn- 
able units. 

The vicious effect is seen in the principle that testing on per- 


PHYSICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCE 181 


formance rather than upon learning tends to set up in the pupil 
an entirely erroneous conception of the nature of his education. 
The eager conformist becomes a lesson-learner and tends to get 
farther and farther from a sense of reality and a sense of the 
value of education as a means of discovering and adjusting him- 
self to reality. The resolute direct learner becomes disgusted 
and convinced of the futility of education itself. The placid in- 
dividuals, who are always inclined to accept the world uncrit- 
ically as they find it, conclude that education is indeed a desir- 
able good and that its value consists in winning a diploma which 
can be used as a key to unlock vocational possibilities. 

The learning of the new unit as purely a new understanding 
having been once mastered and tested as understanding, the pu- 
pil is in possession of an additional intellectual implement with 
which to apply nature’s supreme gift to man, the ability to inter- 
pret novel situations through the exercise of the reasoning proc- 
ess. It would be of little consequence to store the mind with 
knowledge about oxygen and with other chemical lore. That 
knowledge would very likely be obsolete long before the pupil 
would have occasion to use it. The acquisition of the body of 
concepts out of which the chemist builds his specific method of 
interpreting the world abides and keeps pace with the advance- 
ment of the science. An elaborate body of information about the 
Federal Constitution and its historical background would leave 
the learner as uneducated as before, unless that information 
were focused upon the essential understandings which explain 
our civil structure. Possessed of the latter, the individual has a 
piece of critical apparatus with which he can examine the out- 
worn stereotypes of civil behavior to which the reactionary ad- 
heres and equally the nostrums of the political quack. And so 
it is with all the units in the whole extensive field to which the 
science type of teaching applies. In every case the attainment 
of the objective is the attainment of an attitude from which rea- 
son can be applied to the interpretation of situations which are 
novel in the individual’s experience. The contrasting educa- 


182 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


tional purpose is that which results only in habitual responses 
to the present environment. The one represents education; the 
other, regimentation. 


DETERMINATION OF UNITS 


How are the units in a natural or social science to be deter- 
mined? 

The pedagogical test of a unit, as we have seen, is that it 
must be a comprehensive and significant aspect of the environ- 
ment, or of an organized science, capable of being understood 
rather than capable merely of being remembered. With this test 
antecedently in view it becomes primarily the task of the teach- 
ers of the sciences in question to set up a provisional unitary or- 
ganization as a pedagogical hypothesis. This is no easy under- 
taking. It requires thorough knowledge of the science itself, a 
valid conception of the science as a factor in general education, 
a sense of pedagogical values, and withal prolonged reflection 
over the problem. Ordinarily, there will result even at the first 
attempt a series of units which forms a much more satisfactory 
basis for the conduct of the course than has the ground-to-be- 
covered, lesson-to-be-learned procedure. 

As in the case of all scientific work, the theoretical unitary 
organization must be submitted to the test of experiment. In 
this case, the conduct of the course itself is the experiment. If 
the organization is a good one, it works. Ordinarily, at first it 
works but not satisfactorily. The objective results manifested 
by the class suggest the defects. Analysis reveals their cause and 
intelligent modification improves the organization. And so from 
year to year the effectiveness of the organization grows. 

For the sake of illustrating the principles which have been 
set forth in this chapter, several unitary course organizations 
are exhibited as they have been worked out in the laboratory 
schools. The reader should not make the mistake of accepting 
these organizations as final or of imagining that any teacher in 
any school can copy them and proceed. Sound teaching requires, 


PHYSICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCE 183 


first, the organization of the course which is to be taught; sec- 
ond, its organization in terms of present conditions in the school 
rather than in terms of ultimate and desirable conditions; and, 
third, selection of units in accordance with the materials avail- 
able and the pupils to be taught. Rule-of-thumb will serve teach- 
ing no better here than elsewhere. 

Some of the units listed bear better titles than others; and 
some are probably better units than others, but each can be con- 
ceived as a unit within the terms of the definition which has been 
given. Unless the teacher has himself achieved a clear concep- 
tion of the nature of a unit, however, he may treat any one of 
the units merely as a chapter of content to be memorized. 

The author is frequently asked to furnish a list of the units 
in a course in a particular subject for a particular school, or to 
publish lists of units for all courses. Such an undertaking would 
be as badly misconceived as would be the furnishing by a med- 
ical school of standard treatment good for all cases of a given 
malady. The teacher himself, or a group of teachers organized 
for the purpose, thoroughly grounded in the unit principle and 
well equipped with the academic content of the course, is the 
proper agency for working out the unitary course organization. 


TYPICAL COURSE ORGANIZATIONS 


Elementary Science I (junior high school) 
1. The Earth on Which You Live 
2. Weather and Climate 
3. Our Food Supply 
4. Our Water Supply 
5. Keeping in Good Physical Condition 
6. Care and Selection of Clothing 
7. Safeguarding Our Health 
8. Nature and Control of Fire 
9. Heating and Ventilating Our Buildings 
10. Man’s Use of Building Materials 
t1. Man’s Use of Machines 
12. How Are Air and Water Put to Work 


184 


13. 


THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


Man’s Use of Steam and Exploding Gas 


14. Man’s Use of Electricity 


Le. 


Lighting Our Buildings and Streets 


Science II (junior high school) 


ve 
. How Plants Differ from Animals 

. What Living Things Are Made Of 
. How Plants and Animals Live 


oO © COON NAM WwW ND 


How Living Things Differ from Non-Living Things 


How Living Things Are Named 
How Plants and Animals Live Together 
How Living Things Depend upon Their Physical Environment 


. How We Are Like Other Living Things 

. How We Are Unlike Other Living Things 

. How Plant and Animal Life Is Improved 

. How We Safeguard Our Health 

. How We Safeguard the Health of Our Neighbors 


Physics (normally senior high school or junior college) 


i 
. Force and Motion 
. Work and Energy 
. Thermometry and Expansion 


La) 


= 
vo 


Oo won Aum & WwW bd 


The Molecular Nature of Matter 


Heat 
Magnetism 


. Static Electricity 

. Current Electricity 

. Induced Currents 

. Nature and Transmission of Sound 
. Musical Sounds 

. Nature and Propagation of Light 


13‘ 


Optical Instruments 


Chemistry (normally senior high school or junior college) 


. Nature and Composition of Matter 
. Nature of Chemical Change 

. Oxidation 

. Elemental Nature of Matter 

. Equivalent Weights 

. Formulas and Equations 


PHYSICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCE 185 


7. Solution and Colloidal State 
8. Acids, Bases, and Salts 
g. The Nature of Metallic Elements 
10. The Nature of Non-Metallic Elements 
rr. Chemical Equilibrium 
12. The Cycle of Carbon in Nature 
13. Periodic Classification of Elements 


Biology (normally senior high school or junior college) 
1. The Cell 
2. Specialization of Cells in Organisms 
3. Metabolism 
4. Growth 
5. Organic Response of Plants and Animals 
6. Reproduction 
7. Heredity 
8. Evolution in Plants and Animals 


Textiles (sixth grade)* 
1. How to Recognize Fine Qualities in Workmanship 
2. Understanding of Necessary Steps in Construction of Simple 
Articles and Garments 
3. How and Why a Girl Should Care for Her Clothing 
4. How Spinning Is Done 
5. How Weaving Is Done and How Patterns Develop 


House Planning (normally senior high school) 
1. Influence of Material Surroundings upon Home Atmosphere 
2. Adjustment of Style of Architecture to Location, Topography, 
and Climatic Conditions 
. Relationship of Rooms 
. Influence of Color and Design upon Beauty in the Home 
. Architectural Problems 
. Art and Economic Principles Which Should Govern the Plan- 
ning of a Home 
7. How to Visualize Individual Rooms and House Complete be- 
fore Building 


Ain > W 


*The units here listed are the science-type units in a practical-arts sewing 
course. 


186 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


The Worker in Modern Society (senior high school or junior college) 
What It Means to Work Together in Modern Society 

. The Emergence of a Wage-earning Class 

. The Worker as a Seller of Labor Power 

. The Insecurities of the Worker 

. The Worker’s Organization 

. Personnel Management within the Business Unit 

7. Regulation and Control by Society 


Amn & ® N He 


American Political Institutions (senior high school or junior college) 
1. Liberty and the Law. 
2. The Making of Law 
3. The Enforcement of Law 
4. The Administration of Justice 
5. The Rule of the People 


Elementary Economics (senior high school) 
1. Human Wants and Human Production 
. The Exchange of Goods 
. The Distribution of Goods 
. The Maintenance of Government (Taxation) 
. The Economic Rights and Duties of Citizenship 


wm & WwW 


The number of units at any given stage is not so much a 
question of the mentality of pupils as of the adaptations which 
are utilizable in the field of general education. The number is at 
no time large, for after all the number of significant aspects of 
the environment with which all men come in contact is relative- 
ly small. The temptation to increase the list of units is strong. 
Increase in the number of true units quickly leads out of the 
field of general education and into some form of specialized 
study. 

In general, skilful organization of courses tends to decrease 
the number of units and to expand the assimilative material as 
we advance to the higher levels of the secondary school until in 
the university what would have been a unit in the lower secon- 
dary region becomes a full course. 


_ 


CHAPTER XII 
THE UNIT IN HISTORY 


S he notes the title of the present chapter and recalls the 
AN ween chapter, the reader will doubtless receive the 
suggestion that the author is disinclined to include his- 

tory among the social sciences. Not so; our discussion is found- 
ed upon the conviction that human history as an implement in 


education is essentially a social science. The organization of 
historical material for teaching purposes is not, however, an ob- 


_ vious corollary of the discussion of units in the natural sciences 


and in ecomonics and politics. The principles set forth in the 


_ preceding chapter nevertheless furnish a helpful background for 


our study of the units in history, and in all essentials the use of 
history in the field of general education conforms to the princi- 
ples of the science type. 

The reader will recall that history is one of the recent addi- 
tions to the curriculum of the secondary school. Save for a tra- 
ditional course in United States history in the old grammar 


_ school and for an occasional course which some college teacher 


found time to offer, there seems to have been little or no recog- 


_ nition of history as an important element in education down to 


the early nineties of the last century. The period of acceptance © 
of history as part of the curriculum of general education there- 
fore coincides closely with the period of critical study of educa- 
tional products. The use which we here propose to make of the 


_ subject is based not so much upon any final judgment as to what 


history means in education, or of the appropriate content of 


_ courses in history, as upon considerations of what history can 


oy) 


be taught and how it can be taught. 
The early view of the objectives of history teaching implied 
simply memoriter conning of the pages of a textbook, in itself 


187 


188 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


necessarily a meager and purely annalistic account of the past. 
If the pupil developed intellectual growth of any sort at all, his 
gains were purely fortuitous and accidental. Textbooks im- 
proved chiefly in their historical reliability, in their illustrations, 
and in the quality of the questions at the end of the chapters. 
This conception of the teaching of history was that which we 
have found in nearly all the schoolroom subjects, namely, 
ground-to-be-covered and lessons-to-be-learned. There is little 
in such a course which could not be equally well acquired apart 
from teaching altogether. Whether it be desirable to bring the 
individual in contact with all the happenings of the past or no, 
we can feel confident of this at least: History cannot be taught 
that way for the simple reason that there is nothing to teach. 


The reader who has acquired an intellectual interest can no 


doubt learn many things and continue to do so indefinitely, but 
there is much in every field which can be learned and yet cannot 
be taught. 

Another view of the appropriate objective of history teach- 
ing is the development of a liking for historical reading. Here 
at least we have a comprehensible, attainable, and certainly 
worthy end in view. If such is the aim, let us go systematically 
and directly at the task of attaining the objective for all. It will 
hardly do merely to offer courses in history without regard to 
our purpose, in the hope that some individuals will attain the 
educational product desired. The procedure required is evident- 


ly that of the appreciation type, and history becomes essentially 


a branch of literature. Instead of using a school text in history, 
we shall use a library of great literary historical writers. 


A third view would eliminate history as a separable educa-_ 


tional factor and make of it simply the background of each of 
the subjects taught. In that case, history ceases to be a school 
subject and becomes a method of teaching. The issue here set 
up is a problem in method and not one with which technique has 
anything to do. If a given institution concludes to adopt this 
view of educational history it is still subject to the same princi- 


i 
; 
D 
‘ 


‘ 


a, 


; 





HISTORY 189 


ples of teaching which apply to the teaching of history as an 
account of the evolution of human society. 

Still another view would emphasize the need of training 
young people in the critical attitude toward historical material, 
both past and current, and in the capacity to separate the cred- 
ible from the unreliable. Of the need there can be no reasonable 
doubt. The issue is, however, primarily a curriculum problem. 
lf the objective is set up, plainly a teaching procedure must be 
adopted which is calculated to achieve the learning contem- 
plated. The latter cannot be done with a technique which would 
be appropriate to the development of a liking for historical read- 


_ ing, nor under a technique calculated to bring forth understand- 


ing of the past as a process of social evolution. 

The view last named is that from which the present discus- 
sion of teaching takes its departure: first, because under that 
conception history can be taught; and, second, because it can be 
taught on the principles of the science type. It makes of history 
in its educational use essentially an evolutionary science, the 
study of which in the school is to proceed by a technique not un- 
like that which is applied to biology. It purposes to achieve in 


the student a series of understandings of the larger significant 


movements in human history which go far to explain the society - 
in which he lives, and which develop in him a reasoning attitude 
toward the social world of today, in the place of an attitude of 


_ passive acceptance. 


It becomes, then, the task of the teacher of history to dis- 


cover the significant historical movements which can most ap- 
_propriately be made the teaching units at a given level of the in- 


tellectual development of the pupil. That is the problem of the 


historian. The teaching problem hangs upon the selection of the 
‘units, upon the critical insight which distinguishes the teaching 
‘unit from mere topical collections of incidents and masses of 


— 


Se 
; 


historical material which cannot be focused upon any particular 


understanding. Both the curricular and the teaching problems 
should be approached from the standpoint of experimentation. 


190 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


A provisional unitary organization is set up, carefully criticized, 
and then tried out. Under experimental conditions, defects 
which were not a priori evident will assuredly appear. It may 
become evident that a given unit is not a significant aspect of the 
evolutionary process, or it may be revealed that the unit in ques- 
tion does not represent the best selection for developing an un- 
derstanding of the historical movement with which we are con- 
cerned. In either case, the defects are analyzed, accounted for, 
and the course organization appropriately corrected for the next 
offering. Every course should be under constant, critical, experi- 
mental study. 

As in the case of the natural sciences, the total number of 
units needed to accomplish the whole series of historical adap- 
tations in the field of general education is comparatively small. 
At the time of writing, the University High School accomplishes 
the task, in its “Survey of Civilization and Modern History” 
courses in sixteen units. The selection of assimilative material 
which will focus on the unit is more difficult. Restraint of the 
teacher’s eruditional and mental-receptacle stereotypes is most 
difficult of all, for the temptation is strong to include wholly 
irrelevant material under the plea that the pupils “need to know 
it.” “Need to know it” is a euphemism for needing to remember, 
with its inevitable correlate of forgetting. Of what service is it 
to charge the mind with intellectual material which cannot be 
utilized in the production of any new attitude or power whatso- 
ever? Once our minds are clear, it is always easy to look up 
facts for which we have need. On the other hand, a mind may be 
well stored with all sorts of facts and isolated principles and still 
remain utterly confused and muddy in its major needs of ad- 
justment to the world of reality and the interpretation thereof. 

The correct notion of the relation of assimilative material to 
the unit is so important that we venture to repeat what has al- 
ready been stated in chapter xi. Teachers sometimes make the 
mistake of asking themselves the question, ‘What assimilative 
material shall I include under this unit?” or “What are the min- 


Pied 


a 


eee ited 


HISTORY IQI 


imal essentials of this unit?” Either question implies the table- 
of-contents notion of study material. The question which sug- 
gests the right conception of the nature of the unit and its 
assimilative material is, ““What material shall I focus upon this 
unit in order to achieve the appropriate understanding?” And 
the visual aid already used is repeated. 





Direct teaching in oral pres- 
‘entation focused upon the 
unit 


Directed study of assimilative 
material focused upon the unit 


Perhaps the relation of its assimilative material to the unit 
can be made more concrete by discussing specific cases, and for 
this purpose we shall use the outlines in the “Survey of Civiliza- 
tion and Modern History” courses which were in use in the lab- 






The new attitude implied by 
the unit 


Fic, 8 


¢_| Test material focused upon the 
learning product 


_ oratory schools during the school year 1922-23 and which are 
_ explained in Barnard and Hill’s article on “The Curriculum in 


History,” published in Studies in Secondary Education.* 
The following is the description of a unit and its assimilative 


_ material in the survey course. 


The preceding unit is entitled ““Rome—a World Consoli- 
dated.” A part of the understanding of the unit last named is 
the breakup of the ancient world, a civilization in ruins. 


THE MIDDLE AGE—TRANSITION TO MODERN 
CIVILIZATION 
1. The Dark Ages 
a) The barbarian migrations 
b) Rise of the Franks 
c). The Empire of Charlemagne 
d) The invasions of the Northmen 


10Op. cit., Vol. I. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1923 


192 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


2. Medieval life and civilization 

a) Feudalism: raids and invasions, self-help, feudal relations, 
lord and vassal, mutual obligations, the feudal court, feudal 
justice, feudal warfare, the feudal army, the castle, living con- 
ditions, training the knight, jousts and tournaments, chivalry, 
the manor, tillage, serfs and villeins, the village, life of the 
peasants, self-sufficiency of the manor 

6b) The church: the Pope, the clergy, the councils, the monastic 
orders, monastic discipline, the monastery, occupations of the 
monks, services to civilization, the parish priests, the church as 
a social center, church worship, the sacraments, excommunica- 
tion and the interdict, the church courts, heresy, the temporal 
power of the Pope, the rise of the friars, the Franciscans 

c) Life in the towns: growth of the towns, population, walls, sani- 
tation, streets, lighting, police, public buildings, government, 
dwellings, furniture, food and clothing, schools, great teachers, 
universities, studies, use of Latin, medieval superstitions, medi- 
eval art, the cathedral-builders 


The present unit is in essence a comprehension of the Mid- 
dle Ages as a process of building up a new civilization. It is of 
little consequence to remember all that may be read about the 
barbarian migrations or the church. It is of still less importance 
to be able to recall the names of the Frankish kings and their 
interminable dissensions. It is worth while to get a reliable pic- 
ture of the brutal misery of the Dark Ages as a means of helping 
one to realize what a world without civilization is like. It is of 
immeasurable importance for the modern man to acquire a com- 
prehension of what the destruction of organized society means 
and to realize that the slow process of restoration requires many 
centuries. Such is the understanding which must come out of 
the unit. 

Now every item of assimilative material is focused upon the 
new attitude toward human society and its evolution which the 
unit plans to establish, but that attitude is the objective and not 
the assimilative material. The pupil may and probably will for- 
get the most of what he reads about feudalism, but that is of 


HISTORY 193 


little consequence provided his reading leaves him with a sense 
of the stumbling, inadequate, and long-drawn-out efforts to se- 
cure justice to the individual, without which life is hardly worth 
living. Another pupil may cherish with meticulous precision 
every item which he covers in his readings, and his learning is 
of no consequence at all if he has failed to get the major bearings 
of all his mass of facts. The pupil who has mastered the unit 
has acquired an element of sanity, the word “civilization” will 
come to have a meaning, and he will tend to be less hospitable 
to the urgings of those who would tear out the foundations of 
the civilization with which he is familiar. Furthermore, he will 
have acquired a vantage-point from which he can reflect con- 
structively upon the defects of his own society. 

The assimilative material here outlined might have been 
different and still have achieved the objective implied in the 
unit. It is certainly capable of improvement, excluding some- 
thing here and adding something there. 

It might have been thrown out of focus. For instance, if the 
teacher had allowed himself to be governed by the ground-to-be- 

covered stereotype, he would probably have been offended by 
_ the lack of chronological continuity. In that case, he would have 
felt the necessity of bringing in the rise of the Mohammedan 
power in the seventh and eighth centuries and would have thus 
introduced an element incapable of being focused upon the pres- 
ent unit. Instead, he utilizes this material in his next unit, en- 
titled “The Crusading Movement,” the purpose of which is to 
develop a sense of a conflict of civilizations and the survival of 
that which finally evolved into the society with which the pupil 
is familiar. 

The unit with its assimilative material, as it stands outlined 
above, is perfectly capable of being used as daily lesson learning 
and as only another form of ground-to-be-covered. Whether it 
is so used or is used for the attainment of the specific objective 
implied in the unit will depend upon the teacher and upon his 
perception of the principles of learning involved. The outline 


104 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


may be committed to the pupil and assigned as a series of tasks 
to be performed. In that case, the result will be only casual or 
accidental learning. In the secondary school, at least until the 
pupil has reached the level of intellectual self-dependence, the 
mastery of the real learning product will depend upon the teach- 
ing procedure employed and the skill with which it is applied. 
The appropriate technique as applied to the science type in gen- 
eral we shall presently describe. 

Let us spare the time for the consideration of another unit in 
history, choosing our illustration this time from modern history, 
a course for more mature pupils. The unit is “The Westward 
Movement.” 


THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT (In the United States) 


a) The settlement of the Middle West, ca. 1775-1840; early ex- 
plorers and settlers, settlement of Tennessee and Kentucky, occupa- 
tion of the Northwest and Southwest, movement across the Missis- 
sippi, foreign immigration and its effect. 

b) Life on the frontier: homes, occupations, education, religion, 
manners, amusements, ideals. 

c) The development of transportation: steamboat, roads, canals, 
railroads. 

d) The disappearance of the frontier and the development of the 
conservation movement: significance of the frontier in American his- 
tory, waste of natural resources, origin and growth of the conservation 
movement, present-day activities in conservation. 

The objective here is a new attitude in the pupil in which he 
comes to lock upon a great historical movement not as a series of 
more or less interesting events but as a chain of cause and effect 
which goes far to explain the society in which he lives and to 
make that society comprehensible. The objective is another 
adaptation in the series of adjustments all of which taken to- 
gether lift the individual out of his attitude of mere passive, or 
often rebellious, acceptance of the world in which he finds him- 
self and yield to him an attitude of understanding and dom- 
inance over his world and freedom in it. The testing is applied 


x 
Pa 


HISTORY 195 


to the new understanding and not to the memoriter retention of 
historical facts. 

The assimilative material is focused upon the unit, and it is 
not a mere collection of all the material which might logically be 
gathered under the caption implied by the name of the unit. 
All of the comments which we have made touching the unit pre- 
viously discussed apply here. Whether the assimilative material 
is used for its legitimate purpose or not will depend entirely 
upon the judgment and sense of proportion employed by the 
teacher. For instance, in the course of the reading to which the 
first block of assimilative material is devoted, the pupil may en- 
counter the picturesque figures of Pontiac and Tecumseh. The 
legitimate contribution made by a consideration of the out- 
breaks with which their names are connected is a perception of 
the inevitableness of the survival of an organized society in con- 
flict with primitive man. The barbaric chieftains may survive in 
the pupil’s mind as a part of the coloring which he attaches to 
the drama in the presence of which he is for the time being vi- 
cariously living. But the teacher who brings the events con- 
nected with the names of these Indians into prominence and 
insists upon the retention of names and dates and events is sim- 
ply throwing his material out of focus and setting up inhibitions 
to the fundamental and all-important learning to be developed. 
It may well be that later, at university level somewhere, the stu- 
dent may wish to select for investigation the forest politics of 
North America and their relation to European colonization. In 
that case, the unit becomes contracted and the understanding 
sought a specialized field beyond the legitimate content of gen- 
eral education. At the higher level, a different body of assimila- 
tive material is used and it is focused upon a different unit. 

In order to make the unit in history still more concrete in 
the reader’s mind, lists of possible units are presented below. 
The warnings which were recited in the similar connection in the 
previous chapter are, however, reiterated. The units which have 
been tried out are not necessarily the only units. These units 


196 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


are themselves subject to modification and rearrangement in 
the light of continued teaching experience. 


I. Survey of Civilization (junior high school) 
1. Primitive Man 
2. The Civilization of Egypt 
3. Athens—a World Enlightened 
4. Rome—a World Consolidated 
5. The Middle Ages—Transition to Modern Civilization 
6. Islam and the Crusades 
7. The Great Awakening 
8. Colonial Expansion and Rivalry 


II. Ancient History (senior high school) 
Development of Oriental Civilization 
Beginnings of Expansion of Greece 

Growth of Athenian Power 

Conquest of the East and the Age of Alexander 
Expansion of Rome 

End of the Republic 

The World under Roman Rule 

Rise of the Christian Church 


Ill. Modern History (senior high school) 
. The Industrial Revolution 

. The French Revolution 

. The Failure of Reaction 

. The Development of Nationality 
Slavery 

The Westward Movement 

. Expansion of the Industrial Nations 
. The Collapse of Autocracy 


OMAR AY Yn 


Com Ot BW DN 


IV. European History (junior college) 

. The Barbarian Invasions and the Feudal Régime 

. The Medieval Church and the Contest with the Empire 
. Islam and the Crusades 

. The Great Awakening 

. The Reformation 

. European Expansion and Colonial Rivalry 


Ortn bh WwW NY HF 





Ms 
8. 


Q. 


HISTORY 197 


The Rise of Modern Democracy 
The Rise of Nationalism in Europe 
Imperialism 


The following are suggestive course organizations which 
have not yet been fully tried out in practice: 


V. A course for the elementary school 


a 
. Civilized People Who Did Not Read and Write as We Do 

. A Wonderful People Who Taught the World 

. Another Wonderful People Who Made the World into One Na- 


How People Lived before Civilization 


tion 
The Coming of Christianity 


. Civilization Was Once Destroyed 


Another World-Religion 
The European People Learn Christianity 


. A New Civilization 

. A New World Discovered 
. Kings and People 

. Our Own Country Begun 
£3; 
14. 
Ae 
16. 


How People Used to Earn Their Living 
How Factories Came About 

Keeping Slaves and What Came of It 
The Coming of Science 


VI. A course in United States history for the junior high school 


I. 


—I Amn & W NHN 


Immigration: This unit is intended to serve the purpose of the 
usual chapters on the European background. It deals with the 
social causes having their origin in European conditions which 
have stimulated immigration in its several forms from the be- 
ginning 


. Independence 

. Establishing the Federal Government 
. The Factory System 

. The Slavery Conflict 

. The Winning of the West 

. American Foreign Relations 


198 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


VII. A course in United States history for the sentor high school’ 


. Setting the Stage for Columbus 

. The Expansion of the Old World into the New 
. The Struggle for a Continent 

. The New World Breaks Away from the Old 
Making the Constitution 

Testing the Constitution 

Pushing Back the Frontier 

The Industrializing of American Life 


i 


The assimilative material focused upon the several units 
will be very largely economic and sociological, as well as polit- 
ical, in its nature. 

The reader may. well receive from the foregcing the impres- 
sion that the seven courses here outlined constitute a proposed 
curriculum in history. Nothing could be farther from our pur- 
pose. We are concerned with the organization of material for 
classroom presentation and not with the construction of a pro- 
gram of study. At the present stage of our educational devel- 
opment, the selection of the appropriate courses will depend 
very largely upon the practical requirements of the individual 
school. 

* For the organization suggested by this course, I am indebted to Mr. D. C. 


Bailey, of the history department in the Lyons Township High School, La- 
Grange, Ill. 


—_——- 


CHAPTER XIII 
THE UNIT IN MATHEMATICS AND GRAMMAR 


mar together in the same chapter is itself a good illus- 


: pre of the teaching of mathematics and gram- 


tration of a teaching unit in the science type. Logical- 


_ ly, the two should be discussed in separate chapters. As a mat- 
_ ter of understanding the teaching process, the two belong to- 


gether for the reason that the principles which govern the selec- 
tion of the units in one are those which apply to the other. The 
reader will be able to gather a surer notion of the principles to 
be applied if he can see the two as essentially the same and can 
at the same time see them as qualifications of the principles 
which govern the selection of units in the physical and social sci- 
ences and in history. Mathematics and grammar, as commonly 
taught, seem to differ from the other sciences in the severely log- 


_ical nature of the apperceptive sequence of the units. To be sure, 
_ apperceptive sequence is as valid and critical a matter in chem- 


istry or in economics as in mathematics. It is futile, for instance, 
for the pupil to attempt the mastery of the unit “oxidation” if he 
has no notion of the nature of chemical changes. Nevertheless, 
the learning process in the physical and social sciences admits of 
wide variations in the order of the units, while in mathematics 
and grammar each unit is built on the preceding in a much more 
restricted fashion. 

The critical test of the unit is the same as in the other sub- 
jects named; it must be a comprehensive and significant aspect 


of the science. It must further be teachable as distinguished 


sy 


from being merely learnable, and it must be capable of being 
tested for mastery. 

The unit must be comprehensive. For example, in English 
grammar we find that children in about the fifth or sixth grade 


199 


200 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


can learn the major elements of the simple sentence—the simple 
subject, simple predicate, direct object, indirect object, predi- 
cate noun, and predicate adjective—much more readily and 
much more surely if they are learned together when the unit is a 
comprehension of the simple sentence without modifiers than 
when the elements are learned separately and in isolation. In 
the latter case, the tendency seems to be to make the parts mere 
content in memory, and the pupil soon begins to stumble be- 
cause, as he puts it, he “cannot remember which is which.” Sim- 
ilarly, processes like addition and subtraction in arithmetic can 
more economically be taught together under the direct-teaching 
procedure than taught separately. Furthermore, there seems to 
be good reason in practice to think that addition and subtraction 
of denominate numbers can be taught most economically in the 
Same unit with the processes as applied to the decimal system. 
The essential point is that the objective which can be mastered 
is an attitude in terms of an ideational complex which sweeps 
the whole unit, whatever the unit may be found objectively and 
experimentally to be. If the unit is found and mastered, the 
product is an understanding; if it is not found, the product tends 
to be mere content in memory of the lesson-learning type. In the 
latter case, the pupil exhibits his non-mastery by inquiring, “Do 
you add or subtract?” There further tends to be set up a singu- 
lar emotional inhibition, when processes are learned separately 
which belong together in the same unit, in that the pupil tends 
to magnify the difficulty of the later separate processes. 

In experimenting with this issue, addition and subtraction 
were first tried as separate and successive units. At the end of a 
prolonged period of teaching, it was found that pupils would 
still guess which process it was with which they were dealing. 
The addition learning would still carry over into subtraction and 
confuse the issue. The learning unit is not merely addition and 
subtraction, one after the other, but the discrimination between 
the two as well. 

The extent to which the consolidation of a unit can be car- 


MATHEMATICS AND GRAMMAR 201 


ried depends upon the spread of the details which must be fo- 
cused. Multiplication and division, for instance, constitute a 
unit since they are essentially reciprocal aspects of the same 
process. Nevertheless, there is much more complicated detail in 
each than is true of either addition or subtraction. Hence, two 
units are set up. A situation like this is met by the insertion of 
what may be called a “generalizing unit,” in this case that which 
bears the caption, “Variation.” Taught separately without such 
a generalizing unit, the pupil tends to learn the processes as mere 
mechanical manipulation but not to learn the arithmetical essen- 
tial which may be described as a discriminating sense of appli- 
cation in a thought process. All the way up into the high school 
and beyond he inquires, either explicitly in words or implicitly 
by guessing, ““Do you multiply or divide?” Hence the essential 
pedagogical unit of multiplication and division is in the new unit 
which we have inserted after the two manipulation units. That 
unit is taught until the new understanding is established, until 
the class as a whole sees the relation clearly and is in no more 
need of hesitating over the application than are we adults who 
are never in a shadow of doubt whether “you multiply or divide.” 

The same principle can be seen in grammar in connection 
with the very thin units, gender, number, person, case, and tense. 
It is a simple matter to teach each of them and to apply the rules 
of agreement to each. Indeed, this part of the teaching process 
is so simple that it is entirely possible not to teach them at all 
but rather to hold the pupil responsible for learning them with- 
out teaching. The result is all too familiar: There is a memory 
content which is perfectly good in a specific memory test but 
which does not “transfer” to usage. Failure of transfer means 
failure to learn some critical unit. If now we introduce a gener- 
alizing unit, call it “agreement,” and teach this unit to the point 
of mastery, we shall have established the critical and essential 
learning product. Otherwise, such real learning as may result is 
accidental. 

The teaching of the learning units to the point of mastery 


202 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


requires the insight and the patience which is associated with all 
scientific and systematic practice. That is another chapter, or 
rather series of chapters. Each unit requires a great deal of time 
and the application of skilful administrative technique. In point 
of time required, however, three observations should be made. 
In the first place, time required is of a great deal less importance 
than assurance of learning obtained. In the second place, if the 
specific allotments of time required by the graded-school tradi- 
tion—so many weeks to this process and so many to that, with 
its corollary of chance learning—is abandoned, the thoroughness 
gained by teacher and by pupils is in the end a great time-saver. 
Finally, the divisions of subject matter implied by the ordinary 
lesson-learning and dependence-upon-teacher procedure run to 
several times the nineteen or twenty units under which the arith- 
metic taught in the first six grades can be organized. 

Thus, the selection and organization of units in subjects like 
grammar and arithmetic. The same principles will apply to the 
unitary organization of algebra, trigonometry, the principles of 
rhetoric, and the theoretical side of music. The reader will 
doubtless inquire how the unitary organization would apply to 
demonstrational geometry conceived as a sequence of logical 
propositions. The answer is that it would not apply at all, since 
the learning objective here is chiefly the development of the 
power of logical analysis as applied to space relations, or the 
mastery of an understanding of space relations through the ap- 
plication of practice in deductive reasoning, rather than through 
inductive learning of their properties. Much the same situation 
is found as that which was found in the use of historical material 
for the purpose of developing the power of critical analysis. 
Both of these are instances of ability objectives, and they are 
examples of the application of a higher form of the practice 
type. The treatment of mathematics on the principle of fusion 
of its several divisions, best illustrated perhaps by the textbooks 
of Breslich, conforms in all essentials to the principles of unitary 


' 
; 
i 
; 
14 
4 
‘ 
j 





MATHEMATICS AND GRAMMAR 203 


organization applicable to the natural and social sciences, and to 
this problem we shall presently turn. 

In the case of mathematics and grammar as in those of the 
subjects discussed in the two preceding chapters, a very critical 
consideration is the distinction to be made between the unit and 
its assimilative material, between the learning product itself and 
the experience out of which learning may arise. In daily lesson 
procedure, the distinction is commonly overlooked and the pupil 
is constantly taught assimilative material until the objective 
itself is lost to view. 


ASSIMILATIVE MATERIAL IN MATHEMATICS 


So far as general education is concerned, mathematics is val- 
uable chiefly as a means of interpreting those aspects of the | 
world which are not otherwise capable of analysis. The junior 
high school pupil gives expression to the principle when he an- 
nounces, “You can solve that problem by algebra but not by 
arithmetic.” Similarly, the chief use of grammar is that of a 
piece of critical apparatus which the individual uses in justifying 
the clarity and logical coherence of his discourse. Hence the 
best assimilative material in both mathematics and grammar is 
the application of the mathematical processes and grammatical 
principles to concrete material. The principle upon which reli- 
ance is thus placed is that which is familiar to the modern stu- 
dent of teaching under the designation “functional learning.” 

In each unit of mathematics, therefore, the assimilative ma- 
terial is properly concrete applications in the form of what are 
commonly called “problems,” all of which are focused upon the 
unit. The problem aspect as such is not important; the concrete 
application aspect is important. Assimilative material is oppor- 
tunity for the broadest and most varied experience-getting in the 
application of the unit studied. Every element of the examples 
given for study, however, must itself be within the comprehen- 
sion of the pupils, for otherwise it will not focus upon the unit. 
Appropriate assimilative material for addition and subtraction 


204 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


at about third- or fourth-grade level, let us say, is examples of 
the following type: 

“Tn Miss A’s room are 41 children; in Miss B’s, 39; in Miss 
C’s, 26; in Miss D’s, 45. How many are there in the four rooms? 
How many more has Miss A than Miss C?” The material is 
within the experience of the pupil and it focuses upon the unit. 

The example might have been this: 

“There are four pipes pouring oil into a tank. One pours in 
18x gallons a minute; another, 156 gallons; a third, 175, anda 
fourth, 216. How many gallons do all pour in in one minute?” 
The elements may be within the experience of some children, but 
these are very few. Most children will get the cue that addition 
is called for, and the result is a mere drill exercise with numbers. 
The material does not focus upon the use of the unit as a means 
of interpreting actual environment. The pupil senses no reality. 
The docile take a step in the direction of lesson-learning. The 
direct learners are apt to balk. 

Again an example like this (an actual case): 

“Mr. H sells his potatoes for $1,275; his wheat for $2,480; 
his hay for $752. How much does he realize on his sales?” 
Again, many of the children got the addition cue, but, in a 
school in which the emphasis is upon direct learning, most of the 
children balked upon the expression “realize on his sales,” which 
was not within their vocabulary. The performance of some of 
the children was satisfactory, but there was no more evidence of 
learning in their cases than in those of the children who balked. 

In the higher mathematics of the secondary school, it is not 
always so easy to use concrete assimilative material. Geometry 
of course in its nature deals with such and trigonometry to a 
large extent. In algebra the situation is somewhat different. In 
the algebra units suggested below, the first unit encountered as 
we read down the list which cannot be so treated is No. 7. But 
here the unit has to do with the manipulation of certain alge- 
braic expressions, and they become themselves the concrete ma- 
terial. The same thing is true of units 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 





MATHEMATICS AND GRAMMAR 205 


17,and 18. All the others can use concrete aspects of the environ- 
ment as assimilative material. 

The emphasis placed upon problem-solving in many mathe- 
matical texts sometimes tends to throw assimilative material 
completely out of focus. At bottom, the difficulty arises from con- 
fusion in the objectives. The proper objective, for instance, may 
be the application of the mathematical process known as the 
equation to the interpretation of certain concrete situations. 
The textbook-maker hopes to develop in conjunction therewith 
an abstract power which he calls “problem-solving ability.” The 
two objectives cannot be developed in unison unless one is a 
function of the other, and this is not often the case. The solution 
of a puzzle focuses the learning power upon that unrelated ob- 
jective and directs it away from the learning of the mathemati- 
cal principle which is the proper objective. The pupil becomes 
more concerned in the solution of the puzzle than in learning the 
equation principle. The result is pedagogical confusion. The 
learning which results is uncertain and accidental because there 
is no single clear objective in the teacher’s mind to which the 
mastery process can be applied. The situation is frequently ag- 
gravated, especially in the case of the equation, by the introduc- 
tion of special types of problems which require the application 
of special methods of solution. These are apt to be either prob- 
lems drawn from specialized fields, in which the pupil has had 
no experience, or else problems which are pure mental gymnas- 
tics unrelated to any probable environmental need. Clock prob- 
lems, hare and hounds problems, fast and slow train problems, 
tank problems, and the like will occur to the reader as illustra- 
tions. The problems which are to be focused upon the unit 
should be such that their elements are within the experiences of 
the pupils concerned, such that the conditions involved are with- 
in the powers implied by the pupils’ mental age, and so worked 
that the vocabulary employed is their usable vocabulary. 

There seems to be a broad principle of learning and intel- 
lectual development involved here upon which it is worth while . 


206 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


to comment in passing. Problem-solving is essentially and fun- 
damentally reflective thinking, and, conversely, reflective think- 
ing is problem-solving. As we have seen, the conditioning fac- 
tors under which thinking takes place are: (1) something to 
think about; (2) a method of thinking; (3) inherent capacity to 
think at all; and (4) a motive for thinking. Now, mathematics 
and linguistics are primarily methods of thinking. When we add 
to a pupil’s repertoire of methods an adaptation implied by one 
of the units, the equation in mathematics for instance, we have 
put him in possession of an additional tool for use in his reflec- 
tive processes. We have in that sense improved his capacity to 
think, but we have not modified his inherent mentality. His 
mental index remains the same as before. If he uses his new tool 
a great deal he acquires facility in the application of that partic- 
ular tool to many kinds of situations which he meets, but it is 
facility which he acquires through practice and not a generalized 
gymnastic effect upon his inherent mentality. We do not expand 
his stock of things to think about; we give him a method of re- 
flection upon his present stock and upon the additions to that 
stock which he may later acquire. We make possible an exten- 
sion of his motives for thinking by giving him an additional tool, 
just as we expand his motives for carving, or mischief as the case 
may be, by giving him a knife. 

If we think it worth while for him to learn a particularly 
puzzling type of problem, then in reality we have decided to give 
him an additional method of thinking. If it is worth while for 
him to learn how to solve clock problems, then we should add a 
unit on clock problems and teach it. The value of such a unit de- 
pends strictly upon its usefulness in attacking significant aspects 
of the environment and not upon its use as mental gymnastics. 
The process or principle taught in its application to actual expe- 
rience is what is important to the development of thinking power 
and not its mechanical manipulation, on the one hand, nor its ap- 
plication to difficult and unusual problems, on the other. 





MATHEMATICS AND GRAMMAR 207 


ASSIMILATIVE MATERIAL IN GRAMMAR 

The choice of assimilative material in grammar in all re- © 
spects follows the same principles which have been set forth in 
connection with mathematics. The comprehensive objective is 
an intelligent attitude toward the structure of the pupil’s own 
discourse, not the extended apparatus which is needed by the 
specialist in English composition. This intelligent attitude is 
built up in a series of adaptations or unit understandings of the 
structure of the English sentence. Assimilative material is prac- 
tice with the analysis of typical sentences which the pupil uses 
or might use. In this case the environment for our purposes is 
the pupil’s own discourse. The objective of learning, or the true 
learning product, is an understanding of the unit taught and not 
a memory content which, as expressed in the pupil’s own phrase- 
ology, is ‘““How did she tell us to analyze this kind of sentence?”’ 
The following unitary course organizations are suggested, 
not as dogmatically final products, but, first, as concrete illustra- 
tions; and, second, as bases from which the practicing teacher 
can experiment in the direction of new and better organizations. 


ARITHMETIC IN THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL 


This course organization assumes that the primary number 
adaptations have already been established. 


. Reading numbers 

. Addition and subtraction (includes simple denominate numbers) 

. Multiplication 

. Division 

Variation (see above, p. 201) 

a) If pencils cost 4 cents apiece, how much will 6 cost? How 
many can be bought for 24 cents? 

b) If pencils are 3 for 10 cents, how much will 6 cost? How many 
can be bought for 40 cents? (The direct ratio relation) 

c) If 3 pencils cost 12 cents, what will 7 cost? How many can be 
bought for 40 cents? (The unit cost analysis situation) 

d) If pencils cost twice as much as before, I can buy half as many 
for the same money. If pencils cost twice as much, I shall have 
to pay twice as much for the same number 


on & WW NY f 


208 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


Note that the objective is a clear understanding of all the 


cases in their relation to one another and not the mastery of each 
as an isolated element. It is perhaps not too much to say that 
this unit is the most important elementary method of mathemat- 
ical thinking. 


6. 
oe 


Measurement. (The notion of measuring) 
The fraction understood as a ratio (not fractional parts which is 
properly an item in the primary adaptations) 


. Lowest terms 

. Fractions greater than unity and mixed numbers 

. Common denominator 

. Addition and subtraction of fractions 

. Multiplication and division 

. The decimal fraction (objective is an understanding of what the 


decimal fraction is) 


. Conversion of common fractions into decimals and vice versa 
. Addition and subtraction of decimals 

. Multiplication and division of decimals 

. The percentage relation. 

. The three cases 

. The notion of factors 


It will be observed that this organization makes no provision 


for various items usually found in courses in arithmetic. There 
are omitted, in the first place, the primary adaptations, that is to 
say, the elementary number concepts upon which the possibility 
of study depends. These include especially the following: 


a) 


b) 
c) 
d) 
e) 
f) 


g) 
h) 


t) 


The concept of number itself, which most children properly de- 
velop within the kindergarten period 

Figures as symbols for expressing number 

Combinations of numbers into other numbers 

Fractional parts 

The concepts of multiplication and division of numbers 

The concepts involved in the common measurements 

The primary spatial concepts 

The number space (addition-and-subtraction combinations) and 
the multiplication table 

The conventions for expressing United States money 





MATHEMATICS AND GRAMMAR 209 


Note, however, that, while 4) may be taught in the primary 
school it is no part of the primary adaptations proper, but is an 
illustration of automatic habitual-response development under 
the pure practice type of teaching. It is essential to the study 
process and may need to be perfected within the secondary pe- 
riod. 


CRITICAL IMPORTANCE OF THE PRIMARY ADAPTATIONS 


Discussion of the technique of teaching as applied to the pri- 
mary adaptations in number belongs to a volume devoted to pri- 
mary teaching. Their fundamental importance to the whole 
problem of mathematical thinking is however so critical that 
something more than passing notice of their relation to uni- 
tary organization of the course in arithmetic is called for. Clear 
notions of their influence on the later learning process are of 
practical service, especially in connection with the treatment of 
problem cases whether the latter be corrective or remedial in 
character. It is commonly taken for granted that bright children 
passing through the primary school are sufficiently well ground- 
ed in this respect. Ingenious testing focused upon the primary 
adaptations often shows the contrary to be the case, shows that 
such children’s ordinary responses are mere verbal memory con- 
tent rather than evidences of the essential concepts. Noteworthy 
shortages are illustrated by the following instances. 

The child has acquired a sort of perverse facility in manipu- 
lating figures without a realization of the quantities for which 
the figures stand or of the meaning of the processes or combina- 
tions which he employs. Among other later symptoms of inhibit- 
ed learning power is often a tendency to report results of calcu- 
lations which are on the face of things absurd. The pupil does 
not sense the absurdity because he senses nothing about the situ- 
ation beyond manipulation of figures. 

The common measurements turn out to be mere memory 
content. A quart is a measure and it is made up of two pints; 
somebody told him so. But the measure stands for no concrete 


210 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


quantity in his mind. He can box the clock dial, as the mariner 
boxes the compass, but told to be in a certain place at ten min- 
utes after twelve, he asks his room teacher if it is time to go. 

Many of the shortages occur simply because the teacher has 
not diligently checked up the learning units by individual appro- 
priate testing. The median of the class is equal to or above the 
norm of class performance for that grade. The teacher does not 
stop to inquire whether she is using a performance test or an in- 
dividual adaptation test, nor is she concerned about the non- 
learning individuals so long as the group is up to standard. In 
brief, failure of the pupil to make the primary adaptations 
means failure to learn to use mathematics as an implement of 
thinking. 

The development of the primary adaptations calls for direct 
teaching, testing, and reteaching, but no element of study, prop- 
erly so called, is present. 

Second, there is omitted from the course organization in 
arithmetic, as outlined above, the development of appropriate 
facility in the use of the arithmetical processes, such, for in- 
stance, as rapid and correct column addition. This, like the de- 
velopment of facility in the number space and multiplication 
table, requires teaching under practice principles and the tech- 
nique is quite different from that which is applicable to the units 
of understanding which we have listed. When such facility be- 
comes desirable, a separate course should be set up and the ap- 
propriate objective systematically sought (see chap. xxvii). 

In the third place, there is omitted the learnable but non- 
teachable material in which automatic response is unnecessary. 
There is included here, especially, factual material such as the 
tables of denominate numbers. Some few facts should ultimate- 
ly be made items of automatic response, such, for instance, as 
the number of inches in a foot, the number of ounces in a pound, 
etc., but for the most part such bodies or arithmetical constants 
should be made conveniently available to the pupil and he 
should be made responsible for looking up his material when he 


Ne ei ee 


MATHEMATICS AND GRAMMAR 211 


needs it without the intervention of the teacher. In the lower 
levels of the secondary school, it will be convenient to hang in 
the room the appropriate charts. Later, the books provided 
should contain tables of constants. In due time, the pupil will 
tend to select for himself the constants to which he needs auto- 
matic response. 


ELEMENTARY ALGEBRA 


The following unitary organization of a course in elemen- 
tary algebra is suggested as illustrative of the principles set 
forth: 


1. The concept of literal numbers 

2. The concept of plus-and-minus quantity 

. Graphic representation 

. The equation (the concept of the equation and the solution of the 

simple linear equation but not extended processes of solution) 

. Addition and subtraction 

. Multiplication 

. Expansion of binomial and trinomial expressions 

Division 

. The concept of factors 

10. The factoring process as applied to the following type forms:? 
a) x*t2xy-+y? 
b) x?—y? 
c) ax?+bx-+ce 
d) x4 b3* 

11. The algebraic fraction as a ratio 

12. Lowest terms 

13. Fractions greater than unity and mixed numbers 

14. The common denominator 

15. Addition and subtraction of fractions 

16. Multiplication and division 

17. The linear equation with one unknown—proportion as an item of 
assimilative material 


> WwW 


0 OI AN 


* The appropriate assimilative material in factoring is found in fractions and 
quadratics. Hence mastery is apt not to be complete until later. 


212 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


18. The linear equation with two or more unknowns 
19. Functions—linear and quadratic graphing 

20. The quadratic equation 

21. Formulas as algebraic representations 

22. Square root 


As in the case of arithmetic, and indeed of all the science- 
type subjects, items which are learnable but do not require 
teaching are omitted. Two illustrations will suffice. 

In the first place, the algebraic vocabulary is not included. 
For instance, there may be placed on the board the following: 
“A monomial is an expression of one term: a”b? is a monomial.” 
“A binomial is an expression of two terms: (x+y), (x’+xy), 
(abc—def) are binomials.” And so on. The legends are then 
allowed to stand and teacher and pupils drop naturally into the 
appropriate use. 

A special consideration arises in the case of factoring. In the 
first place, an understanding of the nature of factors must be 
established. Too often the pupil fails at this point; he learns the 
manipulation and perhaps acquires considerable ability in fac- 
toring expressions which are set down in plain terms. But fail- 
ing to understand the nature of factors, he is quite as apt to pick 
out expressions which are not factors as those which are. For in- 
stance, he becomes expert in manipulating expressions in the 
form x’+2xy-+y’, but confronted with an expression in the 
form 

xt— yt 2(a?-+-b?-+-c*) 
e+ytoe+h+co ’ 
he is quite as likely to treat x--y and the expression a?-+-b?-+-c? 
as if they were factors of the terms of the fraction as otherwise. 
He does not understand the nature of factors. The objective im- 
plied by Unit g is this requisite learning product. 

On the other hand, the manipulation of the type forms listed 
above, and of others which the teacher may think desirable, in- 
volves an element of memory. For instance, there is nothing in 


——.s— 


MATHEMATICS AND GRAMMAR 213 


the understanding of the nature of factors which gives us the di- 
visors in forms like c) and d) on the list. That has to be remem- 
bered. For this purpose, it is well to have on the walls of the 
room charts in which these type forms are set up in factored 
form. If, however, the pupil is preparing for special study in 
some mathematical field, the manipulation itself should be drilled 
until it becomes automatic. This calls for appropriate drill pro- 
cedure under practice principles. 

Unitary organization in correlated mathematics is illustrated 
by the two courses presented below. The organization thus set 
up has been in use in the University High School. 


MATHEMATICS I (GRADE VII UNIVERSITY HIGH SCHOOL) 


. The conception of line segments 

. Formula representation of numerical facts 

. The angle 

. Indirect measurement 

. The circle 

. Formulas and equations 

. Areas of rectangles and squares. Multiplication of polynomials. 
Square root 

8. Areas of quadrilaterals, triangles, and circles 


1 Qtr bh W WN FF 


MATHEMATICS II (GRADE VIII UNIVERSITY HIGH SCHOOL) 


1. Areas of surfaces and volumes of solids with algebraic implica- 
tions 

. The conception of positive and negative numbers 

. Solution of problems involving signed numbers 

. The quadratic equation 

. Functions of one variable 

. Linear equations in one and two unknowns 

The quadratic equation (second unit) 

. Factoring and fractions 

. Exponents and radicals 


Oo oom Amn ff WH bh 


It will be noted that geometry can be taught under the sci- 
ence type, provided it is conceived as an inductive science in 
which the objective is primarily and solely the establishment in 


214 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


the pupil of an understanding of the nature of the various space 
relations. If, on the other hand, the objective is primarily train- 
ing in the application of deductive reasoning to the study of 
space relations, the learning product, as we have seen, is in the 
form of a specific power and the technique which is applicable is 
a form of practice. Viewed as the establishment of a series of un- 
derstandings of the phenomena of space relations, Units 3 and 5 
in Mathematics 1 above are appropriate illustrations. The teach- 
ing technique is in all respects the same as that which is applic- 
able to a unit in physics, chemistry, or biology. The unit dealing 
with the circle, for instance, is developed in precisely the same 
manner as the chemistry unit which deals with oxidation. Wheth- 
er inductive or deductive teaching is the appropriate means of 
accomplishing the desirable educational adjustment is a problem 
of method with which this work has nothing to do. It is essen- 
tially important, however, to keep the two teaching objectives 
distinct in mind and not to attempt to apply the same technique 
to both methods. There is appended a unitary analysis which 
seems to be appropriate to the treatment of plane geometry as a 
science-type subject. 


PLANE GEOMETRY TREATED AS A SCIENCE-TYPE SUBJECT 


t. The angle 
Conception of the angle; measurement; the right angle; sum 
about a point; complementary and supplementary angles 
2. Parallel lines 
3. Perpendicular lines 
4. The triangle as a plane figure 
Sum of angles; types of triangle; the exterior angle relations; 
properties of right, isosceles, and equilateral triangles; congru- 
ence; similarity; relation of angles and sides 
. Quadrilaterals 
. The polygon - 
7. The circle as a plane figure 
Angular values; angles and arcs; tangency; chords and arcs; in- 
scribed angles; angle relations of chords, tangents, and secants; 


On ur 


MATHEMATICS AND GRAMMAR 215 


relation of circle to inscribed and circumscribed triangle, square, 
and polygon 
8. Areas 
9. Loci 
10. Proportion as applied to plane figures 
It. Symmetry 


The objectives in the units here are the development of a 
series of understandings of the nature and properties of the most 
significant space relations by direct inductive presentation and 
study. No element of training in the use of deductive reasoning 
is involved. In Units 1, 4, and 7, the outstanding properties are 
listed as suggestive of the appropriate assimilative material. The 
unit, however, is the objective; the assimilative material is not 
the objective. The test of the unit is its application to the inter- 
pretation of concrete situations, not the memory of the proper- 
ties involved. The assimilative study should rest, so far as pos- 
sible, upon geometrical construction and upon the solution of 
concrete problems, arithmetical and algebraic as well as geo- 
metrical, which can be focused upon an understanding of the 
unit. The reader is reminded that all such assimilative problems 
should be calculated for the purpose of developing the unit un- 
derstanding intended and not for the purpose of training pupils 
in “problem-solving.” See comments on assimilative material in 
arithmetic above. For purposes of geometrical construction the 
study-room should be fitted up with suitable drafting apparatus 
and with roomy blackboards. Careful and workman-like draw- 
ing should be insisted upon. 


THE UNIT IN GRAMMAR 


In developing the theory of the science-type unit as it is 
found in mathematics and grammar, we have thus far used 
mathematical illustrations almost entirely. No illustration and 
no argument drawn from the field of mathematics is without its 
application in the field of grammar. It is, however, perhaps 


216 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


worth while to trace the application of our principles specifically 
to courses in grammar. 

Throughout the greater part of the modern period, the use 
of English grammar for educational purposes has had an uncer- 
tain and precarious place in the circle of the schoolroom sub- 
jects. The evident futility of attempting to teach children to 
speak and write correctly through the learning of grammatical 
principles led at first to a considerable inclination to cast gram- 
mar out altogether. Subsequently, it tended to come back, com- 
bined with usage conventions in the form of language books. 
Finally, the scientific movement in education brought about a 
study of the principles of correct writing which children need to 
learn and especially those upon which emphasis needs to be 
placed. The result has been a much more economical and sys- 
tematic training in the usage conventions. 

The correct use of clear and convincing discourse seems to 
be capable of analysis into at least three distinct adjustments. 

In the first place, we must note the ability to use discourse 
for the expression of any thought at all and its development into 
the ability to express one’s self at length, quite apart from ac- 
curate use or conventional use. We have here one of the most 
important language-arts objectives, attainable only on language- 
arts teaching principles. The lack of such training and experi- 
ence apparently results in the production of what are sometimes 
called the “inarticulate masses.” 

In the second place, we have the language conventions, in- 
cluding spelling, punctuation, sentence structure, correct use of 
words, and the like, which in its higher ranges includes the ele- 
ments of style. The objectives here are largely practice objec- 
tives—in the case of spelling, conspicuously and definitely so. 

The third adjustment in the series arises out of the study of 
grammar. Grammar, properly conceived as an educational im- 
plement, is a description of the structure of the sentence and the 
implications thereof. Hence, there is involved a series of under- 
standings of structural relationships which imply the science 





| 





MATHEMATICS AND GRAMMAR 217 


type of learning and a training which is distinct from that used 
for the development of the fundamental discourse ability or the 


_ conventions of correct usage. The pupil who has mastered the 


essentials of grammar is in possession of an intellectual imple- 
ment which he can apply to the criticism of his own discourse. 
It is probable that nobody ever learned to write correctly or 
clearly solely through the study of grammar, but it is certain 
that nobody can today enjoy intellectual self-dependence with 
respect to his own discourse unless he understands and can apply 
the principles of grammar. The child who has been constrained 
to use “were”’ rather than “was” in a sentence of which the 
subject is ““you”’ demands the learning of the principles of gram- 
mar when he asks the question, ‘“‘Why should I say ‘were’?”” He 
might go on to the end of the chapter correctly using a conven- 
tional form, such as that of the illustration, with no knowledge 
of the principles of grammar, but as he becomes involved in 


novel forms of discourse, he must be able to think his way 


through to the correct form which he needs accurately to express 
his meaning. Grammar is a method for such thinking. 

There is perhaps no part of the field of general education 
characterized by more inefficiency than that which deals with 
training in English writing and the learning of foreign languages. 
It is easy to believe that the chief reason for such inefficiency 
has been the failure, first, to discriminate between the educa- 
tional purposes which grammar is well calculated to serve and 
those which it cannot possibly serve; and, second, to realize that 
the use of discourse as a means of receiving or expressing 
thought can be learned only on principles which are wholly un- 
like those which apply to the acquisition of an understanding of 
the structure of discourse. 

The educational use of grammar is then limited to those 
principles which put the student in an intelligent attitude toward 
the structure of his own discourse or toward the structure of dis- 
course which he is likely to use. It does not imply the grammati- 
cal training of the specialist nor purely eruditional acquisitions 


218 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


which have little or no bearing upon accurate use. Now the edu- 
cational use of grammar has been singularly liable to attacks of 
eruditionalism. While such refined study is in many cases no 
doubt of the highest importance to the linguistic specialist who 
works in the ever present hope that some refinement of analysis 
will lead to the shedding of new light on the nature and develop- 
ment of language and the evolution of human society, its prod- 
ucts serve no useful purpose in helping the pupil of the secondary 
school to understand the structure of the discourse which he 
uses. The test of the value of a unit in the teaching of grammar 
is, therefore, Will it help the pupil to understand? The test is 
not, Does the pupil need to know? 

The illustrative unitary organization given below is subject 
to all the qualifications which have been enumerated in this and 
in preceding chapters touching such organizations. 


UNITARY ORGANIZATION OF A COURSE IN GRAMMAR 


1. The notion of parts of speech 

2. The simple sentence in its basic elements 
(Unmodified subject, predicate, direct object, indirect object, 
predicate noun, and predicate adjective) 

. Adjectives and adjective modifiers 

. Adverbs and adverbial modifiers 

Comparison 

The prepositional phrase 

Number? 

. Person 

. Gender 

. Case and its use in pronouns 

rr. Agreement in subject and predicate—generalizing unit 

12. The relative clause and complex sentence 

13. The noun clause 

14. Pronouns and their antecedents and agreement 

15. Conjunctions and the compound sentence 

16. Tense 


0D ONT AM SW 


* Nos. 7, 8, and 9 represent thin units requiring little or no assimilative ma- 
terial, 





MATHEMATICS AND GRAMMAR 219 


17. Auxiliary verbs 
18. Verb phrases 


The assimilative material on each unit is: (a) analysis of 
sentences selected in such wise that they will focus on an under- 
standing of the unit set up for teaching; (0) the interpretation 
of usage principles as they apply to the unit. For instance, in 
Unit 14, the appropriate assimilative material is a great variety 
of sentences in which the antecedents of pronouns, both relative 
and personal, are traced. Likewise, the correction of instances 
of bad usage in which the pronoun does not agree with its ante- 
cedent is set up in abundance. Assimilation is approaching com- 
pletion when the pupil can unerringly identify the antecedent in 
case after case and can also unerringly detect and correct in- 
stances of bad usage. 


CHAPTER XIV 
THE TEACHING CYCLE 


HE unit objectives being clearly in mind, we need to 
seek and to analyze the teaching and study procedure 


by which the successive understandings can be estab- 
lished. An effective procedure involves much more than a teach- 
ing method as that term is commonly used. 

Teachers in schools of education and normal schools, super- 
intendents and their staff officers in city-school systems, are 
frequently in receipt of letters inquiring what method is used 
for the teaching of reading or writing or science or perhaps mod- 
ern language. There are sometimes enumerated in the writer’s 
thought such vaguely descriptive phrases as the “word-and- 
sentence method,” the “phonetic method,” the ‘“‘blank system of 
penmanship,” the “heuristic method,” the “direct method,” the 
“natural method,” the “grammatical method,” the ‘‘supervised 
study method,” the “socialized recitation method,” and so on 
at great length. Pedagogical history is full of ephemeral meth- 
ods attached to the names of places in which they have flour- 
ished or to textbooks which have “swept the country.” Not in- 
frequently the question is made a political issue and communi- 
ties are agitated by the ridiculous question, ‘‘Shall we allow such 
and such a ‘method’ to be used in our schools?” As if the matter 
could be settled wisely by popular vote! Or the writer of such 
letters may have a mind which is blank on the subject of meth- 
ods but convinced that if somebody will name a method all will 
be well. 

Now, this general attitude toward the problem of teaching is 
evidence of another mental stereotype like the ground-to-be- 
covered and time-to-be-spent stereotypes. This one we may call 
the ‘‘method-to-be-followed stereotype.” Its essence is in the 


220 





THE TEACHING CYCLE 221 


notion that if the teacher can find the specifications for the right 
method he can follow it in his teaching and nothing remains to 
be done but to grade the pupils according to their success in 
achieving the appointed tasks. The logic of the matter is that, 
if ground-to-be-covered and time-to-be-spent are lawfully deter- 
mined and the method-to-be-followed is properly appraised, 
educational results must follow in proportion to the inherent and 
unmodifiable general ability of the pupil. Nothing could be 
more remote from a sound educational point of view. 

It is true that there are right and wrong methods of teach- 
ing, methods under which learning is easy and economical, and 
methods under which it is difficult and uneconomical. A given 
method will tend to produce a given learning product and an- 
other will tend, other things being equal, to produce a different 
product. For instance, nobody would today contend that the 
alphabet method of teaching reading will ever produce reading 
ability in the most direct, effective, and economical manner. The 
grammatical method of approach to the teaching of a foreign 
language yields one kind of product, and the direct method quite 
another. Heuristic teaching of science or mathematics tends to 
mental confusion in the pupil and direct expository teaching 
tends to lead to clear understanding, but a good teacher will get 
better results with a method which in itself has a wrong tenden- 
cy than will a poor teacher with a method which has a right ten- 
dency. There is gradually being built a body of verified princi- 
ples touching the application and results of teaching methods to 
which we may properly apply the designation “methodology,” 
or the science of method. But it does not follow that a method, 
be it never so well established in principle, can forthwith be ap- 
plied to any situation and the teacher rest content that he has 
done his part. On the contrary, there is much more than a meth- 
od involved in teaching. In the end, success depends upon the 
teacher and upon his skill in applying an elaborate fund of spe- 
cial knowledge to the solution of teaching problems. No method 
has ever yet been evolved and no book written, nor in the nature 


222 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


of the case is it likely that such ever will be produced, which will 
enable anybody to follow a routine course in the assurance that 
certain results must follow. 

As soon as we turn to our task of analyzing the problem of 
establishing the appropriate understandings under the science 
type, we encounter a diversity of factors. It at once becomes 
plain that no mere routine can be set which will operate itself. 

The factor which first attracts our attention is that of direct 
teaching in which method bulks large. Method bulks large, but 
the teacher’s personality, vigor, and control technique bulk 
larger. 

The moment we attempt to apply a systematic procedure to 
our teaching we are confronted with the need of a process of 
testing. It is not enough to teach; it is necessary to find out 
whether or not our teaching has registered. Teaching method 
ceases to have any importance at all and the teacher becomes es- 
sentially a skilful weigher and interpreter of evidence. 

Unless our pupils are not in need of teaching, we shall find 
that in numerous instances our teaching has not in fact regis- 
tered, perhaps not at all or at best not as it should. The factor of 
corrective teaching thus presents itself. To omit this factor 
throws us back on one or all of the routine stereotypes to which 
we have paid our respects so many times. Thoroughness of 
teaching depends upon adequate corrective teaching. Again, 
teaching method in the ordinary sense gives place to skill in 
studying the individual pupil, and to acumen in criticizing the 
teaching which we have administered in the particular situation. 

As we have seen, teaching is only the handmaid of study. In 
time, teaching should become unnecessary and the learning 
process should become thenceforth wholly a study process. 
Hence a large part of the teacher’s energy and thought and time 
must be bent upon the selection of study material, upon the fo- 
cusing of such material on the unit, upon directing the study of 
pupils, and upon developing in them methods of study. Here, 
the teacher is again a student of the individual pupil and above 


— as ee ee er 


| 





THE TEACHING CYCLE 223 


all perhaps a student of the subject which is being taught and 
studied. Nobody can teach that which he does not himself 
know. Emphasis has been placed, and wisely so, upon the sec- 
ondary teacher’s need of training in education as his technolog- 
ical subject. The present author would feel little justification for 
his book if he were not profoundly convinced of the truth of the 
principle. But this emphasis should not be allowed to induce us 
to minimize the importance of a rich and progressive compe- 
tency in the academic aspect of the subject being taught. The 
latter is especially vital in the selection of units to be taught and 
in the organization of study material. The teacher cannot organ- 
ize units unless his mind can sweep over the whole great expanse 
of his subject and judge between what constitutes the significant 
and comprehensible material of intelligent attitudes and what is 
merely detail which contributes little or nothing. He cannot or- 
ganize and focus study material unless he has at command 
broadly intellectual resources which enable him readily to apply 
to the unit being studied the needful wealth of material which 
illuminates and makes significant the understanding sought. 

Finally, there must be provided not only opportunity for 
genuine and adequate pupil reaction but a constraint which 
compels the immature pupil to react to and thus make his own 
the attitude which the unit implies. — 

Hence, we are compelled to set up a systematic technique 
which is calculated to keep before our minds in the routine of 
teaching all of the elements of the teaching process which we 
have enumerated. Nevertheless, the systematic technique thus 
adopted will not operate itself. At the best, it only gives us a 
plan for reducing to an appropriate system what would other- 
wise be confusion. Successful teaching again depends upon the 
personality, intelligence, professional insight and skill, learning, 
and diligence of the teacher. A technique-to-be-followed would 
be no better than any other stereotype. 

1. In the teaching of any unit there is first of all, then, to be 
considered the preliminary appraisal of the present experiential 


224 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


background of the pupils with respect to the unit itself. The 
procedure thereafter to be followed will be determined very 
largely indeed by the disclosures of this step. 

2. At the beginning of a course, and of each unit in the 
course, especially in the lower levels of the secondary school, 
there must be awakened in the pupil’s mind normal learning cu- 
riosity, which is the chief constraint upon which the teacher has 
to rely for pedagogical purposes. If the connection between the 
new unit and what the pupil already knows is made sure, mo- 
tivation based upon curiosity will normally be established. De- 
vices for “making the subject interesting,” on the one hand, and 
constraint which is mere obedience to the teacher’s will, on the 
other, will seldom serve the purpose. Nevertheless, unless the 
whole spirit of the school is focused upon convincing pupils that 
they must learn and that learning depends upon themselves, the 
operation of even normal curiosity is likely to be blocked. The 
blasé offspring of the well-to-do home who has been waited upon 
since infancy and the young hoodlum of the city streets are alike 
in abnormal attitudes toward what the school has to offer. Both 
may require vigorous remedial treatment before the learning at- 
titude can be established. Between these extremes are often a 
large number who have been so surfeited with cheap juvenile 
literature and moving-picture experiences that normal child cu- 
riosity has been blunted by an excess of purely impressionistic 
experiences, and the conviction that learning effort is a serious 
matter even in childhood has never had any opportunity to be- 
come established. 

3. Until learning self-dependence has been achieved, and by 
our definition of the secondary school that does not occur until 
toward the end of the period of secondary education, the pupil is 
more or less dependent upon direct teaching at the hands of the 
instructor. In the primary school he is wholly dependent. He 
cannot in substance be told at the beginning of a unit, ‘Here is 
a pleasant pool; plunge in, swim across, and I will pass to the 
other side and see how you have enjoyed it when you come out.” 





THE TEACHING CYCLE 225 


On the contrary, the essential understanding must be estab- 
lished in broad terms by direct expository teaching at the outset. 

4. Learning is a change in attitude, or the acquisition of a 
new ability. In subjects which belong to the science type, the 
new attitude is one of understanding or comprehension. The 
change is an inward affair which can be achieved in the most 
thoroughgoing and economical manner only by the pupil himself 
as he works over in a long study period an adequate body of as- 
similative material focused upon the unit. Adaptation is a form 
of growth, and growth requires time and feeding. One of the 
notable outcomes of experimentation is the disclosure that pu- 
pils require a surprising amount of assimilative experience be- 
fore the adaptation takes place. Herein is the chief opportunity 
in this type of teaching for direct learning by all and especially 
by the pupil who is fundamentally of the direct-learning sort. 
Here, too, is the most noteworthy occasion for the essential 
break with the meager textbook assignment, memoriter daily 
lesson procedure. Under the process of supervised and guided 
assimilative study is the possibility of developing a student who 
is started on his way to self-dependence and the status of really 
educated manhood or womanhood. 

5. Finally, a systematic technique must provide for every 
unit of learning a period in which the pupil is led to react as ef- 
fectively as may be to the content of his learning. As we have 
seen, it is this reaction which seems to accomplish the final es- 
tablishment of the new attitude. 

We may then proceed to the setting up of the outlines of 
systematic technique applicable to each unit in a science-type 
subject. For this purpose, the steps which we enumerate and in 
part develop below have been found convenient. 


I. EXPLORATION 


This is essentially the pre-test stage. In it the teacher en- 
deavors to ascertain what is the present experiential background 
of the pupils as it is related to the new unit. The process may 


226 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


take the form of a written test, an oral quiz, a class discussion, 
depending upon the circumstances of subject matter or of school 
conditions or of the particular pupil group to be considered. 

The step is further the opportunity for establishing the ap- 
perceptive sequence between the present experience of the pu- 
pils and the new unit. Since it calls to mind related content and 
focuses such content upon what lies before, it has a powerful 
tendency, in the hands of a skilful teacher, to arouse curiosity 
and so to set up genuine motivation. 

The proper effect is thus to orient the teacher with reference 
to the presentation of the new unit and to orient the class with 
reference to the new learning. In the earlier levels of the secon- 
dary school, a single class period of thirty minutes will ordinar- 
ily suffice. At the later levels, especially in the physical and 
social sciences, several periods of fifty minutes each may often 
profitably be spent. 


II, PRESENTATION 


This step is the teacher’s supreme opportunity for effective 
direct teaching. It is not undertaken until the teacher is sure 
that exploration is complete. In it he develops once for all in its 
major essentials the understanding which the unit implies, and 
he keeps on teaching by re-presentation until all pupils give evi- 
dence of having made the appropriate adaptation or until he has 
definitely segregated the problem cases. 

This step and the preceding should complete the stimulus 
member of the learning cycle. When the presentation has been 
completed, motivation should have been established and the new 
unit, to use the language of commerce, should have been “‘sold” 
to the class. More than that, the class should be in an intelligent 
attitude toward the new unit which will serve as a point of de- 
parture for the study activities by means of which they make the 
hew understanding their own by process of direct learning. 

Presentation, to be effective, requires complete control tech- 
nique, and few audiences young or old can yield close attention 





THE TEACHING CYCLE 227 


for any considerable length of time. The teacher must learn to 
concentrate his material and throw into his presentation his 
whole personality. An effective presentation on any unit which 
is teachable can be made in not exceeding twenty minutes. In 
the lower secondary school, less than that is desirable. The con- 
tent of the assimilative material which can later be focused on 
the unit has nothing to do with the time required for presenta- 
tion; the objective is an understanding and not a body of con- 
tent. 

Immediately following the presentation is the presentation 
test. The primary purpose of the test is to make sure that the 
presentation has registered, but it serves a very useful purpose 
in the general process of developing study ability, since making 
the pupil conscious during the process of presentation that he is 
immediately afterward to be tested has a tendency to train him 
in the ability to listen effectively, that is, to assimilate the con- 


tent of spoken discourse. 


Re-presentations on a unit may require several additional 
days, but the number of re-presentations required will depend 
upon: (a) the effectiveness of control technique; (0b) the prog- 
ress of training in assimilative listening; (c) the degree to which 
the teacher possesses a convincing personality which he is will- 
ing to exert. Normally, the number of re-presentations required 
in the successive units of a course diminishes, and the number 
required in the later levels of the secondary school is less than 
those required in the earlier levels. 


Til. ASSIMILATION 


It will be observed that down to this point there has been 
nothing like a lesson assignment. The pupils have met in the 


| classroom each day and each day’s meeting has represented 


their work for that day on the school subject which is being 


_ studied. A great deal has been accomplished in establishing the 


foundations upon which the new attitude can be built, and they 
have received effective training in the direction of one of the 


228 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


most important learning habits. This daily meeting in the class- 
room for the purpose of learning there will continue, and there 
will be no outside work except that which is the result of the 
pupil’s own awakening of interest. 

For several days now, or several weeks in the physical and 
social sciences, the classroom is turned into a study-room and 
the pupils use the assimilative material of the unit for purpose 
of: (a) direct individual learning of the unit itself, and (6) pro- 
longed training in the art of study. The materials used in study 
are various and not a single text, although a well-selected basal 
text is often serviceable provided it does not become a mere les- 
son-learning crutch. The teacher’s function becomes that of a 
persistent and industrious seeker after new and better material, 
of a supervisor and director of study, an unremitting student of 
individual pupil difficulties and corrector of the same. The per- 
son who is steeped in lesson-hearing often feels lost in this pe- 
riod. There seems to be nothing to do but to sit quietly or to 
walk quietly about the room keeping order. It is a dull business 
to which surcease is sometimes found in interrupting the study 
of the class for lecturing. Ennui can perhaps be killed that way. 
The teacher must learn a different order of things, and it is the 
purpose of the following chapters to show how the new order 
can be learned. The teacher who has once learned will find that 
the long assimilative period of supervised study fills up his 
busiest days. 

Now, not all the pupils will enter the assimilation period at 
the same time nor will all leave it at the same time, albeit faith- 
ful application of control technique and of the mastery formula 
will be found greatly to reduce the spread of the rate at which 
pupils learn. The pupils will be all together during exploration 
but during presentation the teacher will be satisfied with the 
learning of some much earlier than with the learning of others. 
These more rapidly successful learners will be released from 
presentation either to take up assimilation at once, to secure 
additional time to work on some subject in which they are not 





THE TEACHING CYCLE 220 


so successful, or to work on some voluntary extra project in 
which they are beginning to exhibit the rise of sustaining interest 
and the dawn of self-dependence. Similarly, some individuals 
will master the assimilative process earlier than others, although 
it will not necessarily be the same individuals on every unit. Ex- 
tra work in another subject and the extra voluntary project are 
both available for the purpose of constructive utilization of time 
which would otherwise be wasted and a temptation to dawdling. 
The class is together again in the organization period. 

The process of taking up the slack time which originates in 
inevitable differences in the learning rates of pupils is discussed 
more at length in chapter xxx. 

Exploration and presentation constitute the chief opportu- 
nity for operating the stimulus member of the learning cycle; 
the assimilation is itself the period in which the assimilation 
member of the cycle is achieved. The two following periods, or- 
ganization and recitation, together constitute the reaction 
member. 

IV. ORGANIZATION 


When the teacher is duly confident that assimilation has 
taken place, the class is again brought together for organization. 
Without notes, books, or documents of any kind, the pupils now 
proceed to gather up all their material and construct an outline 
in which the argument is developed in logical and convincing or- 
der. This outline may take the form of a series of topical sen- 
tences which carry the argument, or it may perhaps better be 
in the regular syllabus form. In the organization, the pupil is 
forced to assemble his thought content and to focus it upon a 
clear expression of his understanding of the unit. He is not now 
absorbing but giving forth, no longer acquiring the new attitude 
but expressing it. In a unit in mathematics or grammar, the or- 
ganization may be very brief; in the physical, biological, and 
social sciences, it is necessarily of considerable length. A full 
class period will usually be required, and frequently two periods. 


230 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


Now the organization is not a test, except indirectly and in a 
subsidiary sense. A class is tested for understanding during the 
assimilation period. The outlines which the pupils submit in or- 
ganization are chiefly performance. Of two who have equally 
valid understandings of the unit one will submit an outline 
which is full and adequate and the other will present an incom- 
plete and incoherent paper. One will make an adequate effort 
and the other will not, or perhaps one has learned how to organ- 
ize his material while the other has not learned. The mastery 
formula is applied, and the pupil who turns in unsatisfactory 
work has his production turned back to him to work over until 
it is satisfactory. Success in establishing the learning attitude 
here depends not nearly so much upon the pupil as upon the 
teacher. Indeed, it is not too much to say that it depends entire- 
ly upon the latter. The teacher who unremittingly requires satis- 
factory performance gets the appropriate results. He who lets 
poor work slide and uncritically consoles himself with the 
thought that the work is perhaps the best of which the pupil is 
capable gets poor results or, it may be, none at all. 

The organization period is further one of the chief opportu- 
nities for training the pupil into that intellectual coherence and 
integrity which perhaps best manifests itself in the coherence 
and clarity of the pupil’s English writing. Its central purpose is 
not, however, training in English composition but rather an es- 
sential part of the learning process as applied to the establish- 
ment of the new attitude implied by the science-type unit being 
taught. The final step in such establishment is the recitation. 


V. THE RECITATION 
We have already commented upon the common experience 
of teachers who realize that they have never acquired genuine 
insight in a subject until they have taught it. The recitation is 
a means of enabling pupils to acquire, at least in part, the kind 
of experience which comes to the teacher through teaching. 
By the time the pupil has reached this stage in the study of 


THE TEACHING CYCLE 231 


a unit, he has presumably acquired the thorough understanding 
sought, he has assimilated a large body of material and has or- 
ganized therefrom the content of his understanding. The class 
is now brought into a social group for the purpose of giving ex- 
pression to the individual understandings of the pupils in the 
form of continuous discourse directed to the class. 

The ideal form of recitation is a series of oral presentations 
in which each pupil attacks the unit as did the teacher in his 
presentation to the class, taking the front of the room for that 
purpose. In the ordinary class group of thirty or more this pro- 
cedure would require too much time. Accordingly, on each unit 
only as many pupils are selected for oral recitation as experience 
shows can conveniently be managed. The remainder of the class 
make written recitations. The selection of pupils for oral reci- 
tations is changed from unit to unit so that the entire class in ro- 
tation has opportunity in this form of recitation several times 
during the course. 

Like the organization, the recitation is not a test of under- 
standing but rather a part of the learning process. In the organ- 
ization the pupil is forced to arrange the material out of which 
his understanding has been built up, in logical and coherent 
order. In the recitation he reacts to his understanding in dis- 
course. Again, he progresses in the development of the power of 
setting forth an actual intellectual content in language forms 
which is perhaps the final expression of intellectual coherence 
and integrity. 

A successful individual oral presentation, with the class dis- 
cussion which it provokes, requires from fifteen to thirty min- 
utes. The number of class periods which can be devoted to this 
aspect will depend upon the teacher’s tact in sensing the point at 
which the class is becoming stale. Two days in the physical and 
social sciences is a fair allowance; less in grammar and mathe- 
matics, and of course less in the elementary school than in the 
high school and junior college. 


CHAPTER XV 
EXPLORATION AND PRESENTATION 


three principal purposes: economy, the establishment 
of apperceptive sequence, and orientation. 

One of the author’s students reports a case in a social science 
class in which the exploration revealed the fact that a pupil had 
studied the Industrial Revolution no less than five times. Im- 
agine the destruction of any normal budding of interest in com- 
pelling that pupil to pursue the subject for the sixth time in a 
class which was otherwise very vaguely aware of the meaning of 
the term] 

Another reports the case of a pupil in algebra who attained 
a perfect score on the pre-test of the unit “Factoring.”’ He had 
not attained a passing grade on algebra as a whole in the pre- 
vious course and so was repeating. Nevertheless, if compelled 
to go through the lesson-learning experience on that unit once 
more, one or all of several things would happen. There would be 
the needless load of one pupil in an already overlarge class. The 
pupil would be likely to acquire an inclination to dawdle in the 
boredom of threshing over old straw. More important than all 
else, he would be likely to acquire a pronounced and perhaps 
permanent resentment at what to him was the incomprehensible 
injustice and folly of the school. 

There is apt to be found in every class, if the teacher will 
carefully and critically look for them, one or more pupils who 
work “in advance of the class.” Such are probably instances of 
nascent self-dependence in learning power. They have not ar- 
rived at the full self-dependence implied by the termination of 
the secondary period, because they have not acquired the full 
intellectual background and social maturity which makes it pos- 


Peo pring can perhaps be conceived as having 


232 


EXPLORATION AND PRESENTATION 233 


sible for them reliably to seek and to work at their own prob- 
lems. Skilful exploration makes it possible to identify and to 
encourage such pupils and, what is more important, to furnish 
the class as a whole with concrete illustrations of what education 
really means. Furthermore, when such pupils are allowed, with 
the approval of the teacher, to expand their programs of study 
by means of extra projects, definite progress is being made in 
their cases in the direction of sound and full intellectual matur- 
ity. Finally, we are thus furnished with a means of identifying 
and selecting the potential scholars and scientists and intellec- 
tual leaders of the next generation which is infinitely more re- 
liable than any possible test of native brilliancy. 

If the course is organized in units, such pupils as those 
whom we have used in illustration can be excused for a whole 
unit. If they are believed to be responsible in the use of free 
time they can be released from class altogether. Otherwise, they 
can be allowed to bring other work to the classroom for the time 
being. The effect on repeaters may well be very happy indeed, 
for the encouragement which comes from recognition of genuine 
success in having learned is well calculated to generate an en- 
tirely new volitional attitude toward school and toward learning. 
In some cases, skilful recognition of the true educational situa- 
tion may well result in a new learning activity which will restore 
the lost class standing. 

As the unitary organization of the course becomes more ef- 
fective with the lapse of time, and as the procedure in the sci- 
ence type in the secondary period as a whole becomes more defi- 
nitely established, there should be fewer pupils who are repeat- 
ers and at the same time fewer who have already covered ground 
which the new unit contemplates. Nevertheless, so long as pu- 
pils are admitted from other systems, skilful and open-minded 
exploration will nearly always reveal individuals of the type to 
which reference has just been made. On the other hand, t 


234 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


number of pupils who show self-dependent study indications 
should be steadily on the increase. 

Such economy as we have discussed of course applies to the 
individual pupil and to his progress through the school, to the 
reduction of retardation and to the reduction of the time re- 
quired for general education. There is another type of economy 
which arises out of the stimulus to more efficient course and 
curriculum organization and pedagogical procedure afforded by 
the revelations of adequate exploration. Let us illustrate. 

The exploration on a given unit may reveal, as it frequently 
does reveal, a very inadequate background as applied to that 
particular unit. The disclosure should not be taken necessarily 
to imply a reflection upon the character of the pupils’ previous 
learning in school or upon the quality of the teaching which 
they may have encountered. The presumption is that an addi- 
tional unit should be introduced or that the order of units should 
be changed or that in some other way a better apperceptive se- 
quence should be organized. Thus does the character of proced- 
ure from year to year improve in the light of intelligent experi- 
mental teaching. 

On the other hand, a series of explorations properly inter- | 
preted serves in part as a functional distance test on the actual- 
ity of earlier masteries. Understandings which the class is pre- 
sumed to have mastered in earlier courses may turn out not to 
have been in fact acquired. This is apt to be the case in the 
physical sciences with reference to earlier arithmetical learning 
or in history with reference to earlier geography and perhaps 
earlier history. Again, such a disclosure justifies no hasty con- 
clusion that earlier teaching has been neglectful or incompetent; 
later teachers may get the same kind of disclosures with refer- 
ence to the content of their own courses. It does admonish us 
first of all to reconsider the diligence and effectiveness of earlier 
teachers, but it is further a warning to study the whole earlier 
procedure not only in its technique but in its method and in the 
placing of study matter in the programs of studies. 


EXPLORATION AND PRESENTATION 235 


_ Exploration will perhaps more often make it clear that, 
while the class as a whole has a sufficient background for the 
new unit, individual pupils need some preliminary instruction in 
details. This is especially likely to be the case with the vocabu- 
lary of the new unit. 

The exploration serves an essential and constructive pur- 
pose in the learning process as applied to the new unit in the de- 
velopment of apperceptive sequence and in thus making possible 
the establishment of motivation. For this purpose, the teacher 
asks many oral questions calculated to provoke class discussion 
touching the whole region of pupil experience of which the new 
unit is an extension and interpretation. For instance, in the 
“Survey of Civilization” course, for the junior high school, the 
second unit is ‘““The Civilization of Egypt.” Now, it would be a 
stupid teacher indeed, during the year 1923-24, who would not 
have devoted a period or two at the beginning to a class discus- 
sion of the doings at the tomb of Tutenkhamon. It would be a 
torpid class which would then fail to exhibit some curiosity con- 
cerning the unit to which they were being introduced. It is not 
of course always possible to find so vivid a capital of ready- 
made interest from which to start, but if no background can be 
found either in the pupils’ previous learning in school or in their 
out-of-school experience or both, then one of three things is true: 
either the teacher is inadequate, or the new material is not a 
unit, or the unit is badly misplaced. 

In the earlier part of the secondary period, it is essential that 
not only that part of the pupil’s apperceptive mass which has 
been acquired in school shall be brought into sequence with the 
new unit but also that part which is the result of his life out of 
school. Otherwise, his schooling is bound to be a bookish affair 
of the extreme lesson-learning variety. In the later years, how- 
ever, especially in the senior high school and early college, there 
should be a sufficient organized intellectual background to make 
connections with the common life obvious and unnecessary. 

We adults are very much inclined to take for granted the ex- 


236 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


periences of childhood and youth in the light of our own expe- 
riences, and to assume that pupils will sense the connection of 
new book content with what they already know. Some pupils do 
sense the connection, and we set them down as “bright,” deplor- 
ing the stupidity of the mass of humanity as it appears in the 
schools. A more reasonable interpretation is that the few not 
only have acquired the requisite experiential background but 
that they happen to sense the connection between the new mate- 
rial and significant elements in that background. One frequently 
encounters alert and sensitive girls to whom, in their own lan- 
guage, school science is ‘“‘all Greek.”’ The truth of the matter 
seems to be that the textbooks which they have used and the 
teaching which has been applied have all been founded upon ex- 
periences which are boy experiences and not girl experiences. 
The utility of adequate exploration here is to call to the surface 
in consciousness all varieties of experience upon which appercep- 
tive sequence may be established in the different members of a 
class. The effect is greatly to decrease the chance character of 
the learning on the new unit and likewise the number of pupils 
whose education is an affair of lessons learned. 

Finally, out of exploration comes the orientation of the 
teacher himself with reference to the presentation of the new 
unit and its subsequent management. It gives the teacher, or 
should give him, a sense of the point of view from which the new 
unit should be attacked with this particular class or section, and 
a sense of the points which must be safeguarded with respect to 
the needs of individual pupils. Even lecturers who deal with’ 
adult and presumably educated audiences are frequently cha- 
grined because their statements have been given an absurdly 
wrong meaning by some of their hearers. The reason is of course 
to be found in the principle that we all of us read meaning into 
statements in accordance with our own content in consciousness 
upon which the statements impinge or which they evoke. How 
much more is this likely to be the case in the teaching of children 
and young people who are still in the process of accumulating 


EXPLORATION AND PRESENTATION 237 


and organizing experience! It is a commonplace of parental and 
teaching experience to hear the exclamation, ‘“‘You never know 
what is going on in their topsy-turvy heads!” Now the public 
lecturer cannot very well conduct an exploration period at the 
beginning of every discourse, although some of us might well ac- 
complish a rough equivalent by estimating our audiences better 
than we do. In teaching in the secondary period, however, it is 
well within the power of the teacher to ascertain what is going on 
in their “topsy-turvy heads” before adding anything to the con- 
fusion. 

If the teacher should feel obliged after exploration to list 
the intellectual content which he has discovered under such cap- 
tions as Roman numeral I, capital A, major subdivision Arabic 
I, minor division (a), and so on, he might present the appear- 
ance of great scientific thoroughness but he would find himself 
hopelessly inhibited and formal in his presentation. He may in- 
deed find it very useful, before embarking on his management 
of the unit as such, to have prepared an extensive set of notes on 
the exploration. Nevertheless, if he has faithfully and with in- 
terest conducted this step in the teaching he will find himself 
possessed of a sense of the right point of view which will carry 
him effectively through a strong presentation. 

How then, more specifically, should the exploration be con- 
ducted? In general, by either one, or preferably both, of two 
procedures, a written pre-test and an oral quiz and class dis- 
cussion. 

A written pre-test, provided it is skilfully prepared with due 
understanding of the use which it is designed to serve, is the 
more exact basis of procedure. If the exploration stops there, 
however, it is likely to be a routine and formal affair. The pre- 
test should be extended enough to explore the intellectual back- 
ground of the whole class upon the unit as a whole and so con- 
structed that it tests understanding as well as informational con- 
tent. It should contain test items so simple that they are likely 
to be reacted to properly by a majority of the class and others 


238 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


so searching that they are likely to be answered by none except 
pupils who may properly be released from study of the unit. 
There should be no time limit. The class should be properly 
motivated. They may be told, for instance, “We are going to 
study for some days [or perhaps weeks] about . It will 
be interesting to find out how much you know about it already. 
Perhaps some of you understand so well already that 
you will not need to study at all in this course. Perhaps others 
know almost nothing about it. Well, that won’t matter; we 
should like to see what you all do know. So do your best.” 

A critically important-matter is the form which the items of 
the pre-test take. The purpose of the test at bottom is to dis- 
close the extent of the pupil’s present essential intellectual con- 
tent with reference to the unit and his present grasp of the un- 
derstanding which the unit implies and not his memory for 
details, on the one hand, nor his ability to write a good examina- 
tion paper, on the other. 

In mathematics and grammar, the pre-test, of course, deals 
wholly with grasp of principles or understanding, and it can 
therefore be formulated with the greater assurance. It should 
not, however, contain items which presume familiarity with the 
specific assimilative material which the teacher proposes to use 
in the study period. In the case of the unit “Factoring” referred 
to above, for instance, the test items may well cover the ground 
of the essentials of the unit. From a question like “What are the 
factors of 6?” which tests the pupil’s fundamental notion of fac- 
toring itself, to questions like “Write the factors of the expres- 
sion a? + 6b? + 2ab — x? + 2xy — ¥’?,” which will disclose the 
pupil’s ability to apply a principle of factoring in algebra to a 
simple concrete situation. In general, there should be more than 
one item dealing with a particular principle so that we may avoid 
as far as possible misfire questions (questions the purport of 
which does not register in the mind of the pupil), on the one 
hand, and mere superficial errors, on the other. For instance, 
there may be three or four questions like the first above. If the 








EXPLORATION AND PRESENTATION 239 


pupil reacts correctly to three of the four, or two of the three, 
we may reasonably conclude that he has the fundamental notion 
and that, if we were to point out to him that he is wrong on one 
or two of his responses he would see his error and correct it. On 
the other hand, if he is right on one and wrong on the others, we 
must conclude that he is hazy on the point at issue or that per- 
haps his right answer was only a chance answer. The test fo- 
cuses upon disclosures of the pupil’s present intellectual content 
and not upon the relative value of his performance with the test 
material. 

In the physical and social sciences the written pre-test is not 
nearly as simple a matter, for here we need to test informational 
background as well as understanding. It is furthermore difficult 
to avoid the complications of mere performance with the test ma- 
terial—the examination situation. The underlying principles re- 

ferred to in the last paragraph, however, apply. Our chief reli- 
ance is upon the true-and-false or the best-answer forms of the 
test material. Let us consider the history unit entitled “The 
Westward Movement” by way of illustration. The following will 
illustrate the kind of pre-test which can advantageously be used 
and some of its items. 


There are several questions on this paper and under each ques- 
tion several answers which might be given. Some of these answers 
are good ones and some of them bad. Check the answers which you 
think are good with \/ and those which you think are bad with x. 

1. What is meant by the term ‘““‘Westward Movement in United States 
History’’? 
a) The trappers in the Rocky Mountains 
b) The settlement of Kentucky 
c) Reclaiming the dry lands 
d) Excursions to the Yellowstone Park 
e) The founding of Chicago 
f) The founding of Buffalo, N.Y. 
g) The founding of Portland, Me. 
h) Making homes on the prairie 


240 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


2. Who were some of the great men in the Westward Movement? 
a) John Adams 
b) General Grant 
c) Andrew Jackson 
d) Henry W. Longfellow 
e) John C. Calhoun 
f) La Salle 
g) Daniel Boone 
hk) Buffalo Bill 
i) Cyrus W. McCormick 
j) James J. Hill 
3. Why did people move West? 
a) Because land was cheap 
b) To find gold in California 
c) Because the government sent them to fight Indians 
d) Because it was hard to find jobs in the East 
e) To found new homes 
f) To hunt buffalo 
g) To see the country 
kh) To get better farms 
4. What nationalities settled the West? 
a) Italians 
6b) Swedes and Norwegians 
c) Descendants of the original colonists 
d) The Irish 
e) The Polish 
f) The Germans 


Four questions are listed by way of illustration of the appro- 
priate type of question. The pre-test as a whole should run to 
perhaps eight or ten. 

A similar conception of the pre-test will apply in general sci- 
ence, in physics, chemistry, biology, in the social sciences other 
than history, in short in all subjects in which content is varied 
and extensive. 

In evaluating and drawing conclusions from the pre-test, the 
central question is, “What is the test disclosure touching the pu- 


EXPLORATION AND PRESENTATION 241 


pil’s intellectual content and background?” Not, “How does he 
compare with other pupils?” And not, “What is his score?” As 
we read the test papers and ponder over their meaning, we shall 
probably be able to sort them into two groups, or possibly three. 

The pupils whose papers fall in the lowest group check the 
items correctly and incorrectly in about equal proportions, check- 
ing some of the absurd proposals as good answers and some of 
the good answers as wrong. We conclude that we have no ground 
for supposing that they have any substantial background for the 
unit at all. 

A better group is composed of those who check the answers 
preponderatingly right but with several false estimates. They 
avoid checking as rights the absurd responses, but they do not 
show the discrimination which a competent knowledge of the 
unit presumes. In Question 1, they check c) and f) wrong; in 
Question 3, they check 0) right, and in Question 4 they check f) 
wrong. The fair conclusion is that their background for the study 
of the unit is adequate, and the teacher realizes that he may pro- 
ceed with some confidence. 

Perhaps one or two check discriminatingly every one of the 
answers proposed, and in the subsequent oral discussion reveal 
an abundance of the essential knowledge required. After some 
further individual questioning the teacher concludes that these 
pupils may be released on the unit. 

Neither the written pre-test nor the oral discussion on the 
unit in the subjects which have an extensive content is alone 
ideally sufficient. The written pre-test tends to become formalis- 
tic, it is almost impossible to make it cover the requisite ground, 
and it is unlikely to yield any substantial motivation. On the 
other hand, the exploration by oral quiz and discussion is wholly 
lacking in elements of precision as applied to the individuals of 
_ which the class is composed. The oral discussion may yield ap- 
parently brilliant results in the class as a whole when in fact the 
chief contribution comes from a few pupils. Conversely, the 
teacher who stands before the class and directs his oral quiz from 


242 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


point to point in terms of the responses received is much more 
likely to cover the whole ground with respect to the intellectual 
content of the particular group before him, and the play of per- 
sonality in this kind of exploration is more likely to arouse curi- 
osity touching the new unit than is the case with the written pre- 
test. 

The crux of oral exploration is the provoking of individual 
contributions through suggestive questions. For instance, on the 
unit ‘“The Civilization of Egypt,” to which reference has already 
been made, an initial question would probably be, “I wonder how 
many of you have seen anything in the papers about the tomb of 
Tutenkhamon?’” There will be likely to be a vigorous show of 
hands. The teacher then remarks, “Well, A, you may tell us 
about it.” A’s response will be likely to call forth contributions 
from B, C, D, and others. When that topic has been talked out, 
other questions follow touching perhaps the sojourn of the He- 
brews in Egypt, the geography of the land, what may be known 
of modern Egypt, and so on. Without allowing any one or two 
pupils to monopolize the period, the teacher thus keeps on until 
the well is pumped dry. 

The question may well be raised, What is to be done with the 
individuals who exhibit minds which are substantially blank with 
reference to any content on the new unit? In the first place, such 
pupils have a previous history and the effect of the exploration 
may be to carry farther the process of identifying them as prob- 
lem cases and diagnosing their difficulties. On the other hand, 
certain pupils may show no problem-case characteristics; they 
have exhibited the same results on all exploration periods and 
yet have in due time arrived at mastery. Such pupils work at a 
disadvantage, but as long as they find their way the teacher need 
not be greatly concerned except to keep them in mind and guide 
them during assimilation to as much of the needful background 
material as will serve their purposes. Still others, especially in 
mathematics, show no background, their school experience has 
been a jumble of non-learning and the get-by attitude. They have 


EXPLORATION AND PRESENTATION 243 


exhibited the same characteristic on one or two previous units 
and have come through to mastery uncertainly and with diffi- 
culty. They are problem cases of the experiential type which are 
treated more fully in chapters xvi and xxxi. The appropriate 
treatment is either to turn them back to an antecedent course 
conducted on mastery principles or to assign them to a remedial 
group. It is uneconomical in the highest degree to hold them in 
the regular class group. 

Exploration having been completed, in perhaps a single day 
in mathematics or in two or three days in subjects with a more 
extensive content, the teacher turns to his supreme opportunity 
in presentation. 

PRESENTATION 


There should be a definite break between exploration and 
presentation. Ordinarily, the exploration will be brought to a 
close on one day and the presentation will be deferred to the next. 
There is no assignment between the two days. The class meets 
the teacher with minds in the attitude established by the explora- 
tion, with apperceptive mass brought to the focus of conscious- 
ness and organized, and with curiosity aroused. The teacher ap- 
proaches the task of imparting in its major essentials in a single 
period, if possible, the understanding which is the unit. In brief, 
through direct, convincing oral presentation he teaches the unit 
itself. The process can perhaps be made clearer through con- 
crete illustrations, and for this purpose let us take first a unit in 
mathematics, perhaps multiplication at about third- or fourth- 
grade level. Owing to limitations of space, we can give but the 


_ barest outline. 





If there are seven children in each of the five rows of seats in this 
room, you know how many there are in the room. There are 7 times 5 
[writes] children in the room or 35 in all. Now perhaps there are 35 
children in each of 8 rooms in this building and we should like to know 
_ how many there are in the building as a whole. There would be 35 
times 8 [writes] children in the whole building, but you do not know 
q _ yet how to multiply 35 by 8 and I am going to show you. We shall put 


244 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


35 on the board and put the 8 under the 5 and draw a line in this way 
[illustrates]. Now we say that 8 times 5 is forty. We put down the 
o under the 5 and the 8 and save the 4 [writes]. Next we say 8 times 
3 is 24 and the 4 we saved makes 28. So we put down the 28 in front 
of the o [does it]. And we see that there are 280 children in the 
building. 

She works two or three others in this simple form and then 
takes a step in advance. 

The Roosevelt School is a big building which has 24 rooms and 
there are 32 children in each room. This is the way we find out how 
many children there are in the Roosevelt School. We set down the 32 
and under it we place the 24 like this [illustrates]. Now we say 4 
times 2 are 8 and put down the 8 under the 2 and the 4. Next we say 
4 times 3 [points] are 12 and put down the 12 in front of the 8 
[points] and we have 128. Now we begin with the 2 in 24, this 2 
[points]. We say 2 times 2 [points] are 4 and we put down the 4 un- 
der the 2 in 24. Then we say 2 times 3 are 6 and we put the 6 
down here in front of the 4 [points]. Our work so far looks like this 
[illustrates]. Now we draw a line and add 128 and 64 in this way 
[does it]. Now we have 768. We call 128 and 64 the “partial prod- 
ucts” and 768 the “whole product” or just the “product.” So there are 
768 children in the Roosevelt building. 


The teacher works out two or three examples of each of the 
types which we have used, introducing in the second type factors 
which involve some carrying. She then proceeds to the heart of 
the matter with an example like 978 times 467, which she treats 
in the same manner, and works several more like it until she 
senses that the class has probably caught the idea. By this time, 
the thirty-minute period is perhaps at an end and the class is dis- 
missed without assignment. The following day the teacher works 
one or two more of the last type and assigns similar examples to 
be worked as a presentation test. Perhaps the presentation has 
required less time and there is opportunity for test on the first 
day, and this is desirable if it is possible. 

Now observe that no questions have been asked, no arith- 





EXPLORATION AND PRESENTATION 245 


metical theory announced, and no rules set up. The teacher has 
simply taught to the point at which she senses that the root of 
the matter has registered in the minds of the pupils, and then she 
tests to see if she is right. She lingers on no details. The proc- 
esses exhibited by the simpler examples are involved in the more 
difficult type. If she were to linger on the details of the simple 
forms, she would set up inhibitions to the effect that all these 
steps are very difficult when, as a matter of fact, the unit itself 
once mastered carries along with it its details. 

Such is the type of presentation in mathematics and gram- 
mar throughout the secondary period, from the simple units of 
arithmetic in the elementary school to the calculus of the junior 
college. 

Presentation in a science or in a history is somewhat different 
in its outward aspects from that used in mathematics, but its 
fundamental nature and pedagogical purpose are the same. For 
purposes of illustration, a presentation in junior high school ele- 
mentary science is offered. The unit was ‘Sending Messages by 
Electricity.” The phraseology is adapted from a stenographic 
report. 


SENDING MeEssAGES BY ELECTRICITY" 

The idea of using electricity for communication is old. You re- 
member that one of the early discoveries in electricity was static elec- 
tricity and you remember that if we take a pith ball, hang it to a 
string and then bring a charged body close up to it, the ball is attract- 
ed over to the charged body. Now the earliest methods of communi- 
cating by electricity that we know of took place about the middle of 
the eighteenth century and what they tried to do was this: They got 
a long wire and around the wire they put insulation of some descrip- 
tion. They would bring a charged amber rod over here [draws on the 
board] and over here [points] they would have a little ball. What 


* As one reads the presentation, he can readily see from point to point where 
the later assimilative material will fill in and round out the pupil’s understanding. 
For the convenience of the reader, such points have been indicated by *. The 
teacher will, however, vary both the assimilative material and the presentation 
itself to suit the needs of a particular class and of individuals in the class. 


246 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


would happen is that the current would flow through the wire and at- 
tract the pith ball to it. They had a wire for every letter of the alpha- 
bet. They would bring the amber up to a certain wire and the pith 
ball would fly over and say “This is A” and so on until a word had 
been spelled out. That was very slow. 

Since that time we have had a great many better instruments for 
communicating by electricity. We have the telegraph, the telephone, 
the electric bell, the buzzer, the wireless telegraph, and the wireless 
telephone. Now every system of communication has four require- 
ments. 

The first requirement is a source of electricity. The source can be 
a cell, as in the case of an electric bell or a telegraph where the mes- 
sage is sent a short distance and a powerful current is not needed. Or 
it may be a dynamo, if a powerful current is required, as in the case of 
the wireless.* 

The second requirement is a means of carrying the current. This 
means is a wire in the case of the telegraph or telephone or electric 
bell.* In the case of the wireless it is the ether with which all space is 
filled. Waves are set up in the ether and these spread in all directions 
until some of them strike the aerial of the receiving station. 

The third requirement for a system is a transmitter. The purpose 
of the transmitter is to complete the circuit and start the current 
going. 

In an electrical bell, this is the bell [demonstrates]; the cells here 
are the source of current; here is the push-button.* When I push 
down on the button, I release the electrons so that the current of elec- 
tricity can go through the wire.* The push-button acts as the trans- 
mitter and completes the circuit. In the telegraph system we have an- 
other device. This we call the “telegraph key” [demonstrates]. The 
current comes from the cell, passes through the key and along the 
wire* to this [demonstrates], which is called the “sounder.” The tele- 
graph key does the same as the push-button; it completes the circuit 
and when the current goes through the wire you get this [sound of a 
click]. The clicks which come from the sounder are arranged into a 
code which is called the Morse alphabet.* Each letter of the alphabet 
has a combination of clicks which stand for it and so a message can 
be spelled out.* 

In the telephone, the transmitter is really much the same but still 





EXPLORATION AND PRESENTATION 247 


somewhat different. The transmitter of a telephone is a moving dia- 
phragm something like this [demonstrates].* Waves of air are made 
by the source of sound such as the voice.* You all know that sound 
itself is due to vibrations. I can illustrate that in this way. Here is a 
tuning fork. I can set it in vibration and you hear a sound. That is 
middle C. If you look closely, you can see the fork vibrating. Every 
note has its own peculiar number of vibrations and the sound of the 
voice is only a succession of notes which we learn to recognize as 
words.* Now when one talks into the transmitter of a telephone [dem- 
onstrates] what actually happens is this: The vibrations set up by 
the voice strike the diaphragm here [demonstrates| and make it vi- 
brate much as the tuning fork did,* only it does not vibrate to one 
single pitch like middle C but rather copies all the many different vi- 
brations in our voices.* Now the diaphragm is so connected elec- 
trically that it makes the current in the wire vary as the vibrations 
vary.* So there are set up in this way a lot of electric waves which 
make a sort of electric current copy of the voice. You will find out 
later in detail just exactly how that takes place.* The current passes 
through the receiver at the other end and makes that reproduce the 
vibrations just as they entered the transmitter and so we hear a sound 
just like what set the diaphragm to vibrating and that sound is the 
voice speaking. 

In the wireless telegraph, we use an induction coil like this [dem- 
onstrates]. You see I can make a spark. Now that spark sets up a 
certain kind of waves in the ether called “oscillations.” It is some- 
thing like this [illustrates]. We can make the oscillations vary as we 
wish just as we could make the sounds with the telegraph key vary. 
So we can send a set of signals out into the ether just as we sent them 
along the wire with the telegraph key. Our aerial is so arranged that 
it will catch these oscillations and vary an electric current in such a 
way that we get a sound to match every sound which was started from 
the distant station where the spark was made. 

The next requirement for sending messages by electricity is a re- 
ceiver. 

In the electric bell, the bell itself is the receiver. See this electro- 
magnet [demonstrates]. When the current is sent through the wire 
and through the coils of the electro-magnet, the magnet attracts the 


248 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


clapper and the bell rings.* When the push-button is released, the 
bell stops. 

In the telegraph receiver you have the same thing. When the key 
is closed in the distant station, the current flows along the wire and 
through these electro-magnets.* They become magnetic and this part 
[demonstrates] flies down and makes the sound [click]. When the 
key is released, it is pulled back by the spring.* So the receiver, you 
see, will make just the same sounds the key makes. 

In the telephone receiver you have the same thing as in the bell 
and the telegraph sounder. Here is the electro-magnet* and here the 
movable diaphragm. [Demonstrates with a dissected receiver.] The 
current flows through the coils of the magnet from the distant trans- 
mitter.* You remember that the vibrating diaphragm in the trans- 
mitter made the current vary in strength.* When a strong impulse 
comes through the magnet it attracts this diaphragm in the receiver 
strongly and a weak impulse attracts it weakly.* So the diaphragm in 
the receiver copies exactly the vibrations in the diaphragm of the 
transmitter and this diaphragm in the receiver makes sound waves in 
the air which strike the ear just like the sound waves made by a voice 
in the same room and we hear what our friend who is speaking into 
the distant transmitter says.* 

The receiver for a wireless is too complicated for us now. Perhaps 
somebody will choose it some time for an extra project. 

So there are four requirements for a system of electric communi- 
cation: 

First, there must be a source of current. 

Second, you have to have some means of carrying the current. 

Third, you must have a transmitter or some device for regulating 
the current strength. 

Fourth, you must have a receiver and the receiver must be cap- 
able of changing electric waves into sound waves so that they affect 
the ear. 


It will be observed that the presentation is a sketch and not 
a finished picture. Detail is reduced to the minimum. The in- 
structor is not concerned to present the unit in precise terms. 
The reader who is versed in the subject will note that there are 
various statements which would fall short of satisfying the spe- 


EXPLORATION AND PRESENTATION 249 


cialist, but the essence of the matter is that they are true as far 
as they go and that they serve to convey to pupils at the junior 
high school level a valid notion of the unit, to set up in them an 
intelligent attitude toward that aspect of their environment 
which is the use of electricity as a means of communicating mes- 
sages. A complete account of the nature of current flow in the 
wire, for instance, would not only throw the presentation out of 
its proper focus but would be likely to throw the minds of the 
pupils into confusion by giving them a broader scope than they 
could assimilate. It would be attempting to cover two units at 
once. 

It will be noted that the teacher is presenting the unit ‘“‘Send- 
ing Messages by Electricity.” He is not teaching the construc- 
tion of the telephone or telegraph. With the unit in mind, it is 
easy for him to pick out the essentials which emphasize the idea 
of message-sending. He is not easily diverted into the pathway 
of mere unrelated knowledge accumulation nor does he wander 
into the refinements of appliance construction. 

The two concrete illustrations which we have given will 
serve as examples of all presentations in the science type. Of 
course the second of the two is illustrative of a much wider field. 
To it will conform all presentations in the physical, biological, 
and earth sciences, in economics, sociology, and politics, and in 
history. We might go farther and exhibit illustrations from each 
of these fields but this chapter is already becoming long and we 
have still a considerable distance to travel. Rather let us turn to 
some important practical precepts touching the conduct of pres- 
entation. 

It will be noted that the instructor did not indulge in an at- 
tempt to present the unit by asking questions about it. In other 
words, he did not attempt to develop understanding by “making 
the pupils think” when they had little or nothing to think about. 
He relied not at all on the “heuristic” method. That was over 
and done with in exploration. He relied rather on straight ex- 
pository explanation of a definite body of related concepts. 


250 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


There is little hope of effective presentation unless the teach- 
er applies effective control technique. The teacher from whom 
this presentation was taken commonly shows close to I00 per 
cent group attention. If the teacher allows a part of the group 
attention to wander, he will need to re-present, not once but 
many times for that reason alone. We have already set forth 
the principles under which group attention is secured and held 
(see pp. 130-133). Of these principles we shall reiterate two. 

The first of these is the exertion of that indefinite and vague 
but no less real thing called “personality” in the teacher. All of 
us have it, in varying degrees perhaps, but equal to the demands 
of the situation in all except the upper regions of the secondary 
school, but we are not all of us willing to exert it. It is easier to 
follow the pathway of least resistance and hear lessons. Effec- 
tive teaching requires exertion: effective presentation requires a 
great deal of exertion. At no point is the issue more sharply 
drawn than in the presentation. On the other hand, it is a rare 
individual who, being indoctrinated with the notion that he has 
a personal force which he can exert if he will, fails to do so. 

The other of the two principles which we must reiterate in 
connection with the establishment of the high group control re- 
quired by presentation is complete mastery of the unit by the 
teacher himself, a familiarity which goes beyond anything re- 
quired of the pupils. If the teacher stumbles and halts or if he 
is confined to notes or to frequent references to a text, group at- 
tention will quickly evaporate. If, on the other hand, he is a 
master of the unit, if he is so thoroughly familiar with his sub- 
ject matter that he can free his mind largely from its details and 
hold his class in the focus of consciousness, he is likely to make 
a good presentation and to exert substantially perfect group 
control. Hence, there is implied not primarily mastery of the 
subject itself, although that should not be minimized, but com- 
plete familiarity with those aspects of the subject which consti- 
tute the content of the course being taught. There is further 
implied full preparation on subject matter before presentation is 


EXPLORATION AND PRESENTATION 251 


attempted. It is not difficult for each of us to recognize the dif- 
ference in our teaching between a day on which our subject mat- 
ter has been duly pondered beforehand and one on which we 
have met our classes without such meditation, albeit our knowl- 
edge is fundamentally the same on one day as on the other. 

A teacher sometimes remarks, ‘Oh, I can never lecture that 
way,” and again, “Public-school teachers as a class could never 
make these presentations.” The author thought so himself until 
a group of fifth-grade public-school teachers suggested the pres- 
entation and convinced him that it could be done. In fact, every 
time a teacher makes an explanation to a class he makes a pres- 
entation. If a teacher cannot explain, he cannot teach. However, 
every teacher who knows his subject matter well enough to teach 
it, and who is willing to make the exertion required, will find that 
he can train himself into the faculty of good presentation. It is 


an art and, like all such, it is learned only by practice backed 


up by the desire and the vision of success. 

It is not sufficient to expound principles or subject matter 
without thought of their registration in the minds of the pupils. 
To do so would indeed be merely to lecture. Presentation im- 
plies that the teacher is not merely expounding but that he is 
also following the minds of his class in order to sense, as far as 
he can, whether or not the pupils are “taking it in.” In other 
words, rapport testing must be going on throughout even the 
most intimate phases of the teaching process itself. The teacher 
is not teaching until he can sense whether or not the class is get- 
ting his message as he teaches. Now in the presentation this in- 
volves explaining and going back for further explanation on this 
point or that until the consciousness comes that the class is going 
along with the teacher. The illustrative presentations which we 
have offered show little or none of this, but in the ordinary rou- 
tine there will be much of it. In mathematics, the teacher will 
keep on working illustrative examples until he senses that the 
point has registered. In science or history he will repeat a point 
which he is making with further and better illustrations. The 


252 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


guidance is found in the faces of the pupils, for there is in most 
cases a tendency for faces to light up as a point becomes clear. 
Without good rapport testing, other testing becomes formalistic 
and inconclusive. Reliance on rapport alone, however, amounts 
to only little more than guesswork. Hence, when the teacher 
feels reasonably confident that his presentation has registered, 
he proceeds to his presentation test. 


PRESENTATION TEST 


It should be noted that the test has not for its purpose the 
grading of pupils but solely the purpose of ascertaining whether 
or not the presentation has registered and with what pupils it has 
not registered. 

In mathematics, throughout the whole secondary period, the 
most convenient method of administering such a test is to send 
the class to the boards with typical examples, one to each pupil, 
all of about the same degree of difficulty, and none of them with 
any problem feature calling for the exercise of special ingenuity. 

Similarly in grammar, if the unit has to do with sentence 
structure, the class is given typical sentences illustrating the 
principles taught, and they are directed to identify the signifi- 
cant parts. If the unit deals with such matters as tense, agree- 
ment, and the like, the class is given a series of true-and-false 
test items. 

Now, the issue of the test is, Has the pupil apparently caught 
the notion? Does the pupil’s response so indicate? The papers 
are not scored for there is no particular need of comparing one 
pupil with another. On the tests in which each pupil is given a 
single example, those who correctly apply the principle taught 
are counted successful and the others not. On the series of true- 
and-false items, the principles already discussed in the adminis- 
tration of the pre-test are applied. In the end, the teacher sorts 
the responses into two groups, the one composed of those who 
have satisfied him that they have caught the major essentials 
taught in the presentation, and the other composed of (1) those 


EXPLORATION AND PRESENTATION 253 


who have not satisfied him and (2) those who have satisfied 
him that they have not caught the notion at all. 

In the extended-content subjects, two methods of adminis- 
tering the presentation test are open. On the one hand, a series 
of true-and-false or best-answer items can be set up for the class, 
the issue in all of the several groups of items being clear and 
simple and of about the same order of difficulty. On the other, 
each pupil may be asked to write a presentation test paper ex- 
plaining to the teacher what the teacher has explained to the 
class. 

If the first form of test is used, the issue is deciding on the 
principles already described in the pre-test and to which refer- 
ence has just been made in the case of grammar. If the second 
form is used, the teacher sorts the papers as before, placing in 
one group those which satisfy him that the pupils have grasped 
the main idea, and in the other both those which do not satisfy 


him and those which satisfy him that the writers have not grasped 


the central thought. The first form of test has the merit of some- 
what greater precision, and in it the element of performance 
testing is at the minimum. Conversely, it tends to become for- 
malistic and to tempt the teacher subconsciously to make his 
presentations more a matter of content than of understanding. 
The second form has the defect of combining a test of perform- 
ance with a test of comprehension, that is, it tests both the pu- 
pil’s ability to express himself and his understanding of the 
presentation. On the other hand, the second form gives greater 
latitude to the pupil, and the group of papers as a whole is there- 
fore likely to throw more light on the result and to prove more 
illuminating to the teacher. It is perhaps well to use both forms, 
varying as the teacher passes from unit to unit, or to use one 
form on the presentation and the other on re-presentation. The 
teacher is concerned wholly with getting the most light and the 
best light on the effect of teaching. On the whole, the author pre- 
fers the second form of test, admitting all its defects. 

In the first place, pupils who are accustomed to its use are 


254 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


thereby trained to become better and more effective listeners. 
Again and again, adults have been tested under the same condi- 
tions as a class of high-school pupils on the same presentation 
and with the same opportunity to write the test paper. Almost 
invariably the adults’ papers are among the poorest in the class. 
The children have been trained to assimilate oral presentation 
and to express themselves concisely and comprehensively, and 
the adults have not been so trained. 

Again, as in recitation later in the unit teaching, the written 
expression is a valuable means of focusing and organizing in the 
pupils’ minds the preliminary learning. It is further a valuable 
means of training in English writing which, we contend, is in- 
separable from the mastery of elements of understanding. In the 
end, we test a complex of understanding and expression, but 
this is well, since in effect we say to ourselves, “Our purpose here 
is to so present this unit that the pupil will not only understand 
but will express his understanding.” 


RE-PRESENTATION 


In the early part of a course, or in a school which is first at- 
tempting to teach to the mastery level, in a class which is com- 
posed of pupils who have been brought up on the lesson-learning 
tradition, there are few units, indeed, in which the presentation 
test shows no occasion for re-presentation. In a school which 
has been free to try out mastery teaching under the best obtain- 
able conditions, the early units in a new course frequently re- 
quire three reteachings before the teacher has succeeded in es- 
tablishing his presentation and in segregating his problem cases. 
Such is the pathway of thoroughness. Toward the end of the 
course, few pupils require more than one reteaching, and the 
presentation registers with the majority on the first attempt. 
Such is the product of thorough training. 

With the test material in hand, the teacher’s first task is to 
study it, to identify the weak points in the presentation, to note 
wherein and why it failed to register with this particular class on 
this particular unit. He will also note the peculiarities of indi- 


EXPLORATION AND PRESENTATION 255 


vidual pupil response as part of his basis for future corrective 
work. It is perhaps worth while to enumerate some of the points 
with respect to which a presentation is likely to have been inef- 
fective, though it should not be understood that the list is by any 
means all inclusive. 
1. The control technique was poor 
2. The teacher undertook to make his presentation without first thor- 
oughly saturating himself with his subject matter 
3. The presentation was not well organized—the few points which 
tell the story clearly in mind and clearly developed 
4. It attempted to sketch into the picture too much detail 
5. It failed to connect up with the pupils’ present stock of ideas on 
the unit as revealed by exploration and consequently went over 
their heads 
6. The teacher’s tone and personal attitude were listless and uncon- 
vincing 
Finally, the teacher will consider the unit itself from the 
standpoint of presentation and note his conclusions for revision 
of the unit in the next organization of the course. One of the 
tests of a unit is the practicability of presenting it. 
The question which at once arises in the reader’s mind, is 
doubtless, Shall a re-presentation be made to the whole class 


_ when only a part of the class exhibits failure to grasp the notion 


which the presentation sought to impart? 
The following description is a rough picture of the probable 


_ result in some of the earlier presentations in a course. Perhaps 
_ athird of the papers will manifest clear understanding; a third 


_ will exhibit a hazy approach to understanding; and a third will 


_ reveal no evidence of understanding at all. On a second presen- 
_ tation to the class as a whole, some of the papers which were in 
_ the second and third groups in the first test will often be supe- 


: 
; 


, 


~ 


‘ 
: 
. 


‘ 


. 
| 
; 


7 





_ rior as performance to any of the papers which were in the first 


group on the first test. Conversely, some of the papers which 
were good on the first test may, on the second, raise doubts in 
the teacher’s mind. We may probably, however, now release a 
part of the class and proceed to re-present a second time to the 


256 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


remainder. There will remain still a few whom we suspect may 
be problem cases, and these are taken in an out-of-class period 
for individual work. Some of them respond; others are definite- 
ly identified as problems. On the whole, if any considerable pro- 
portion of the class, say 25 per cent, fail to exhibit evidence of 
clear learning on a presentation test, it is safe to conclude that 
it will not harm the majority of the class to take re-presentation. 
While those who have actually caught the notion clearly and dis- 
tinctly will not get it any more distinctly on the reteaching, the 
teacher can be more confident that he made no mistake on his 
first estimate if he tries-it again. If only a very few failed to 
catch the idea on the first presentation, they will be dealt with 
on the individual basis. 

In the period of two days to a full week which the explora- 
tion and presentation have occupied, it may transpire that a ma- 
jority of the class has not the intellectual background and train- 
ing which the unit requires. One of two conclusions can be 
drawn. Perhaps, as we have seen, the unit is strangely out of ap- 
perceptive sequence or it may perhaps not be a unit. It is more 
likely to be true that the class is not ready either for this unit or 
for the course. In this case the organization of a slower section 
will not mend matters. A different course calculated to fill the 
intellectual gaps is called for and the administration should 
sanction the organization of such a course, no matter how much 
such action interferes with the orderly sequence of credits and 
the routine bookkeeping of the school. Similarly, an identified 
remedial case at this stage is seldom a subject for transfer to a 
slower section. Remedial treatment is indicated. The slow 
learners who are not remedial cases are, however, more likely 
to appear in the assimilation period. 

When exploration and presentation have been successfully 
accomplished, motivation has been established and the lights 
have been turned on. The process may be likened to giving the 
student a prolonged airplane view of a city which he is required 
thoroughly to investigate. 


CHAPTER XVI 
ASSIMILATION 


T the end of the presentation period, the classroom is or- 
A ganized as a study-room in which day after day the 
pupils carry on the process of study which constitutes 

the assimilation stage in the learning of a unit. 

When we consider the ever present problem of training chil- 
dren and youth for citizenship in a nation which has political in- 
stitutions like our own, our first list of objectives is likely to 
include “ability to form independent judgments,” or some other 
expression which implies the ability to form and hold individual 
opinion in the place of the habit of accepting opinion ready- 
made from the press and the propaganda of the day. Such ability 
is no other than that of the student. If we can train up a genera- 
tion of students, we can educate a generation which will be capa- 
ble of formulating a public opinion, even in the midst of the 
complexities of the modern world, and not otherwise. It cannot 
be done by mere process of presenting both sides of unsettled 
questions to immature youth. That simply generates loose think- 
ing and arrogance in the self-assertive, and bewilderment in the 
sober-minded. As a youth of the latter type remarked, ‘““They 
lead you into a dark hole and blow out the candle.” The assimi- 
lation period in the science type is the chief opportunity which 
the school affords for the development of pupils into students. 

When the pupil hands in his successful presentation test, he 
simply proves that he sees the unit in its bold outlines as the 
teacher sees it. That is the acceptable and necessary first step. 
He must go on now and assimilate the new unit into that com- 
plex of attitudes toward the world which constitutes his intellec- 
tual self. In brief, he makes the new understanding his own by 
prolonged contact with the assimilative material. The process 


257 


258 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


may perhaps be given a more concrete meaning if we consider 
the analogy of nutritional assimilation, although analogies must 
not be pushed too far. 

In the latter, the pupil is engaged in a process of physical 
growth just as in his learning he is engaged in a process of intel- 
lectual growth. In both cases, nature’s purpose seems to be to 
provide for his survival and for his proper contribution to the 
evolution of the race into higher forms. In his physical growth, 
he ingests his food and drink, breaks them up and builds their 
elements into his physical self. He does not store away in undi- 
gested form the bread whith he eats, to be used as he has need 
of it. He is modified day by day, becomes a stronger and more 
capable individual, but he does not become less an individual. 
In his intellectual assimilation, he ponders over new material 
and new principles. They find places in the body of his atti- 
tudes toward the world and he becomes, to some extent, a modi- 
fied and more capable individual in that he can better interpret 
the complex affairs in which his life is passed. He does not store 
away the new principles as objective content in memory to be 
used when needed. 

We can pursue the analogy farther. The pupil sometimes 
eats unwholesome food, and his bodily organism is thrown out 
of adjustment for the time being. Likewise, he sometimes cher- 
ishes ideas which are not true, and his attitude toward the world 
becomes perverted and warped. He may take in food which is 
not in itself harmful but which does not nourish, and he ceases 
to grow. Likewise, he encounters much in his learning which he 
does not assimilate, and he ceases to grow intellectually. Per- 
haps that is the case with a great many people. 

The meaning and significance of assimilation can perhaps be 
made clearer by noting the difference between individuals who 
have assimilated their learning and those who have not. 

We sometimes encounter a mechanic, or even a technologist 
possessed of a university degree, who exhibits the characteristics 


of non-assimilation. He talks the jargon of his trade perhaps ~ 


ASSIMILATION 250 


even more volubly than his more soundly accomplished confrére, 
he successfully meets all ordinary situations which he can inter- 
pret by the book, but he brings no ingenuity to bear. You take 
your case to him, he gives you a ready opinion, performs a bit of 
work, and perhaps the operation is a success. Subsequently, you 
find that he ignored a perfectly simple factor affecting this par- 
ticular case. The whole laborious and expensive treatment was 
unnecessary and it may have been dangerous. He is the product 
of the shop, and has learned to do what other men have told him 
to do and to understand his principles as they have been taught 
to him. As a-practitioner in a scientific field, he is forever quot- 
ing what he calls ‘‘the authorities.”” The opposite type of worker 
studies the job, whether it be a defective-plumbing fixture, a 
problem in accounting, or a congested jaw, in terms of the par- 
ticular situation in which it is found. He uses few words and 
makes an economical use of principles, but he applies the sim- 
plest possible treatment and it works. The onlooker concludes 
that he is possessed of common sense, but common sense is 
simply the endowment which actual assimilation of the requi- 
site principles has given him. He does not proclaim that a for- 
mula is true because the authorities say it is true but rather that 
the authorities say so because it is true. If he does not know, he 
says so, while the other man takes refuge in his vocabulary. 
This man has studied his principles and they have made him an 
effective thinker in the field in which he works, but he applies 
himself to the task and not his catalogue of principles. He has 
assimilated his principles and the other man has not. 

The author has for several years observed with interest two 
kinds of papers submitted by university students. In the one © 
kind, there is a meticulous account of what has been said by the 
instructor in his lectures and an orderly and coherent report 
upon a piece of investigation, but when it is all done with the 
student has extracted no meaning which was not in the lectures 
or in the books. In the other, there is apt to be a resumé of the | 
principles taught, reinforced by a body of confirmatory new ma- 


260 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


terial and followed by a series of practical applications. We are 
inclined to dismiss the contrast with the fatalistic verdict that 
one student is “original” and the other is not. Such may, indeed, 
be the case, but the originality consists in the fact that one stu- 
dent has been accustomed to assimilate his learning and make 
it his own and the other has been a mere receptacle for the no- 
tions of other people. 

The period of assimilation under a sympathetic and intelli- 
gent teacher is the unique opportunity of the pupil who can 
learn only directly and from experience. It is none the less to the 
advantage of the other two types of learners whom we met in 
chapter iv. The transfer type tends to avoid his tendency to be- 
come a theorist; the lesson-learner is forced into a direct-learn- 
ing situation and his tendency merely to memorize a bookish 
product is inhibited. If we so order our technique of teaching in 
the secondary period that all pupils are placed systematically in 
the opportunity for assimilation on every unit in the science 
type of learning and then guided therein as effectively as possi- 
ble, we can accomplish a great deal in the direction of making 
most humans self-dependent in their outlook on life. Such, it 
would seem, is the fundamental requirement of training for citi- 
zenship in a nation which is supposed to order its government on 
the consensus of intelligent public opinion. 

Effective assimilation and learning to study are mutually re- 
lated. Opportunity for assimilation is opportunity for study, and 
effective guidance in assimilation is training in the art of study. 
Now the time-honored demand that pupils shall be taught to 
study is much like the demand that they shall be taught to think. 
Cut-and-dried rules for study, like similar rules for thinking, for 
the most part get nowhere. Study is a language art and, as in all 
such, consciousness of method inhibits rather than assists the 
learning process. One student graphically expressed the princi- 
ple when he said, “I spend so much time hunting for the central 
idea that I forget what it is all about.” Like M. Jourdain who so 
admired prose and was astonished to find that he had been 





ASSIMILATION 261 


speaking prose all his life, so the pupil who is surrounded with 
the learning-to-study mystery may well be surprised to learn 
that he has in reality been studying all his life out of school as 
well as in school. For the practical pursuit which we call “study” 
in the science type of learning, the most that is required is a mo- 
tive, an objective, the needed tools of study, and material. Given 
these, any normal pupil will study. The chief responsibility of 
the teacher and the school is to provide the pupil with these ele- 
ments, but that is often a task requiring the most thoughtful 
scrutiny of pupil behavior. Beyond these elements, there are 
occasionally needed bits of advice which help the pupil in the 
direction of more economical and efficient study. The effective 
content of most books written under such titles as The Ari of 
Study is chiefly a body of principles which apply to one of the 
tools of study, namely, reading. 

If the exploration and presentation have been at all effective, 
a motive for studying the new material has been established and 
the pupils may have been made conscious of the objective, that 
is, what it definitely is that they are now about to learn. As unit 
follows unit and course follows course, motives should become 
deepened and clarified, objectives should become multiplied, and 
more of them will originate in the pupil’s own purposes. 

Studying the unit is learning to use in study the tools which 
have been acquired in their more fundamental aspects elsewhere. 
Reading, mathematics, graphic illustration, English writing, are 
perhaps the principal tools which the pupil learns to apply and 
by learning to apply learns to study and by studying assimilates. 
It is not a question of first acquiring the tools to perfection and 
then learning to study to perfection and then studying. It is all 
one process. The pupil learns to read geography, for instance, 
by studying geography, and by learning to read he learns in part 
not how to study, but studying. Every unit in a science-type 
course, when effectively mastered, is an addition to the pupil’s 
stock of study tools because it is an addition to his methods of 
thinking. 


262 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


A large part of the teacher’s function in assimilation is the 
assembling of the material of study and putting the pupil in 
effective contact with his material. When he has developed into 
a student, the pupil will have learned how to seek his own ma- 
terial and will no longer need the teacher’s intimate guidance 
and supervision. When a meager textbook is the only material 
of study, it is not to be wondered at that the pupil does not learn 
to study. He has no chance. 


THE CLASSROOM 


Let us then turn to a picture of the classroom in the science 
type organized as a study-room for the assimilation period. 

In the first place, the traditional conception of the classroom 
as a place in which the class is to meet day after day, mainly for 
the purpose of reporting on what they have prepared outside, 
disappears altogether. Instead of that, the class appears from 
day to day for its regular appointment in its study-room in pre- 
cisely the same manner in which the teacher presumably retires 
to his own study at home for certain hours during the day. It 
will continue to do so until the assimilation period on the unit 
has been completed. Now this implies several new conceptions 
touching the classroom, its physical arrangement and its equip- 
ment. 

The formal arrangement of schoolroom seats and desks is 
more or less a handicap, but still it will do. The ideal is an equip- 
ment of simple tables with tops which have a sufficient area to 
accommodate the charts with which the pupil is likely to have te 
work. The seat is a substantial chair so constructed that it is not 
likely to develop squeaks with use. An ideal arrangement of 
schoolroom furniture necessarily requires somewhat more floor 
space per pupil in attendance than is the case with the ordinary 
type and arrangement of furniture. The excess space required 
is, however, a small matter when compared with the lavish use 
of space for corridors and other non-classroom purposes so com- 
monly found. 


— 


: 
j 





ASSIMILATION 263 


In the laboratory sciences, laboratory exercises are clearly a 
part of the assimilation period, while lecture-table demonstration 
belongs to the presentation. Ideally, a lecture table, study desks, 
and laboratory tables should be combined in a single room. Dur- 
ing assimilation, pupils should be individually free to come and 
go between their study desks and the laboratory tables. To sep- 
arate the laboratory and the study-room means that either the 
class must go to the laboratory as a unit or else an assistant 
teacher must be employed for the laboratory. The maintenance 
of a small lecture-room for demonstration purposes also runs at 
cross-purposes with the technique to be employed, since, while 
the class is together on the first presentation, groups of pupils 
will be released to begin assimilation before the class as a whole 
is released. Further, the maintenance of such a room for the ac- 
commodation of the small class groups which are appropriate to 


‘science instruction in the secondary period seems to be a waste- 


ful and rather purposeless attempt to copy the physical arrange- 
ment which is perhaps needed in the medical school or for large 
classes in other departments of the university. 

However, the room arrangement is a minor matter. Given a 
thorough teacher, an appropriate technique, and an adequate 
equipment, much can be accomplished even in very illy adapted 
rooms. , 

EQUIPMENT 

Except in the laboratory sciences, the ordinary classroom is 
apt to be a bare sort of place. As long as it is used only for the 
purpose of hearing recitations which have been prepared out- 
side, nothing more is needed. The pupil does not, however, 
study advantageously under such conditions. He requires a 
workroom in which are collected the materials upon which he is 
for the time being dependent. Pupils are not likely to learn how 
to study if they have nothing to study. 

In the first place, there should be on the walls charts which 
show plainly the constants in use in the subjects for which the 


264 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


room is assigned. It is a waste of time in history to spend a large 
part of a course in memorizing the purely chronological data 
which help to form the framework within which the pupil thinks 
and studies. A history-room should have charts for instant ref- 
erence and constant reminder which exhibit such material. Simi- 
larly, a physics-room should exhibit charts of the principal con- 
stants, which are ordinarily found only in the appendix of the 
text. There they serve only to encourage the lexicon habit. And 
so with mathematics, grammar, economics, nutrition, chemistry, 
and other subjects. In addition, the geographical subjects need, 
of course, the appropriate wall-map equipment. 

In the second place, the room should contain, not only the 
few reference books required, but also the body of substantial 
content material which the pupils will have occasion to use, 
many books chosen from the school library and returned to the 
library when no longer needed for classroom study. We cannot 
be too emphatic in this connection in urging the use of suitable 
and helpful books written in the foreign languages which the 
school offers and which the pupils are studying. This is not only 
one of the major functional opportunities for foreign language 
but it is distinctly a contribution to the establishment of an effec- 
tive study attitude for pupils to realize not only that a science is 
not contained within the pages of a single text but that it like- 
wise is not written exclusively in English. Of the same nature as 
book material is periodical literature. Every classroom should 
contain the regular numbers of the special periodicals dealing 
with the subject being studied, which are not too technical for 
the pupils to understand. Even the somewhat advanced tech- 
nical periodicals should be on file for the use of the teacher and 
the few pupils who develop special interests in the subject. 

Finally, there is the matter of laboratory appliances. Labor- 
atory material in the science type in the secondary school 
should be limited to what the pupils can use. The use of such 
material in the assimilation period is limited to the need of put- 
ting the pupil within reach of experience which can best arise 


ASSIMILATION 265 


out of physical contact with concrete appliances and observation 
of the processes in their physical manifestation. Assimilation is 
learning from experience, and in science the most illuminating 
experience often arises out of the contemplation of processes at 
work. The only justification for assigning a laboratory exercise 
to be worked is an affirmative answer to the question, Will the 
exercise proposed make better assimilative material than a 
demonstration which the teacher can present or a certain series 
of pages in the assigned reading? If the apparatus assigned for 
use is so elaborate that the pupil is obliged to learn a difficult 
task of manipulation, it is extremely unlikely that any particular 
assimilative value on the unit itself will be contributed. There is 
seldom, in the secondary period, any possibility of effective as- 
similative use of high-powered microscopes, elaborate electrical 
equipment, sensitive balances, extended arrays of reagent bot- 
tles, and the like. These, for the most part, belong to the period 
of specialization. | 

Often an essential piece of assimilative experience, particu- 
larly in the biological and earth sciences, can be found only in a 
field trip, and the teacher must have vigor and executive ability 
enough to arrange and carry out such trips. 

While the laboratory motive should doubtless obtain in the 
elementary school, there is little occasion at that level for pupil 
laboratory exercises extended beyond the simplest which can be 
set up on the desks of the classroom. If the test question for pu- 
pil laboratory exercises suggested above is consistently applied, 
the answer for most elementary, and indeed junior high school, 
classes will be in the negative. 

Such is the description of a study-room adequately equipped. 
Equipment is very much more important than the physical ar- 
rangement of the room, but lack of adequate equipment is not 
an obstacle which blocks the possibility of teaching under mas- 
tery principles. Even though there is nothing available other 
than a single textbook, a thoroughly earnest and sincere teacher 
can secure results which are much more real than is possible un- 


266 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


der the daily lesson-assignment procedure. The assimilation will 
be brief and perhaps meager but it will be none the less assimila- 
tion contributing to understanding and somewhat to ability to 
study. Further, as the years go on, equipment will accumulate. 

The classroom being arranged as a study and the proper 
equipment provided, it is useful to look into the rooms and view 
classes at work. 

CLASSES AT WORK 

In the first room we visit, every pupil is at work on his own 
individual problem. Some are struggling still in the early stages. 
Others are going steadily and prosperously forward. Two or 
three have completed assimilation on this unit and are working 
on special voluntary projects. One has completed and is utiliz- 
ing the study period for work on another subject in which he is 
finding difficulty. The teacher tells us that still another has been 
released for a few days for additional class work as a visitor in a 
language-arts course in which he is a slow learner. Now and 
then a pupil in a history class which we visit passes quietly to 
the book tables, consults several books intently, selects one, and 
returns to his seat. In a chemistry class, a pupil gathers up his 
papers, makes a final rapid survey of what he has done, slips a 
rubber band about them, and lays them aside. He then passes 
to the laboratory table, selects and arranges apparatus, and be- 
gins work on an exercise. 

In one of the rooms, the teacher is passing quietly and rap- 
idly about the room from pupil to pupil. As he stops at the desk 
of one, evidently for individual instruction, he glances about the 
room, notes a raised hand, and nods to the pupil. The pupil thus 
recognized continues with his work and presently the teacher, 
having set the first pupil right, proceeds to the desk of the sec- 
ond, where a prolonged colloquy takes place. One after another, 
other pupils gather about the desk, and presently the teacher an- 
nounces to the class, “Several of you seem to be having trouble 
with . I don’t wonder. Here is what is troubling you.” 
In a few minutes, their faces say, “Oh, yes, I see,” and study 





ASSIMILATION 267 


goes on. While the teacher is speaking, some of the pupils glance 
up and listen for a moment, but most of these resume their study. 
Evidently the point in question is not troubling them. 

In another room, the teacher is sitting quietly at his desk. 
Study is proceeding, apparently with few if any individual diffi- 
culties. Presently the teacher nods to a pupil, the latter takes a 
chair at the desk, and a prolonged interview follows. We note 
that the teacher asks a great many questions. After the pupil re- 
turns to his own seat, the teacher remarks to us, sotto voce, 
“That is one of my problem cases. He is a slow worker and I 
suspect a reading case. He is coming to me this afternoon for 
some tests.” 

In both these rooms, group attention is near 100 per cent, 
but in the next room we visit the aspect is very different. The 
teacher is sitting at his desk evidently in an irritated and nerv- 
ous frame of mind, a pupil is seated by him, and a cue of others 
reaches halfway down one of the aisles. Pupils here and there in 
the room are dawdling. Evidently the teacher’s concern for con- 
trol technique is nil. We become curious and ask the principal 
who is with us to explain. “Yes,” he replies, “that teacher has 
been visited, helped, coached, and reasoned with but nothing 
seems to do any good. I have sent him to observe one of the 
teachers you visited but without effect. I am afraid it isn’t in 
him. He leaves at the end of the semester. We have another who 
is going with him and perhaps you would like to visit that room.” 

We accordingly enter another room. The teacher is seated 
at his desk correcting papers. The pupils are in various atti- 
tudes of unrest and idleness. Some of them are “‘visiting.”’ Oth- 
ers are merely idling and occasionally glancing at the clock. One 
girl is reading a novel. The teacher glances up for a moment and 
calls out, “Freda, put that book away and go to work.” As we 
leave the room, the principal remarks, ‘‘Well, that is better than 
common; he is usually doing nothing at all. He leaves the build- 
ing promptly at the close of school. Never to my knowledge does 
any studying on his own account. His out-of-school hours are 


268 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


all spent either at a club downtown or else on the golf links. He 
is simply plain lazy and this supervised-study idea he considers 
just so much extra spare time. He used to be very popular with 
a certain set of pupils because he was easy on his grades, but, 
since we have given up grades, people like A and B whom you 
visited are the popular teachers. And, at that, I don’t think it is 
so much popularity as that the youngsters respect them and en- 
joy their work.” 


EXPLANATION, SUB-PRESENTATION, AND POST-PRESENTATION 


The implication of our description of the class at work in the 
assimilation period is that the period is wholly one of studying 
books or other similar material or else work at laboratory exer- 
cises, that the teacher’s direct oral presentation came to an end 
in the presentation period. Not so. In spite of the fact that study 
with books is indeed the dominant and essential characteristic of 
the period, there are often occasions for the teacher’s direct oral 
presentation within assimilation. We shall enumerate three 
types of such occasions. 

One of the teachers whom we visited had occasion to inter- 
rupt study for oral explanation of a point which he found was 
troubling enough of the pupils to lead him to recognize it as be- 
ing of major importance. Let us call this procedure explana- 
tion. Sometimes a great deal of it is required, but the teacher 
needs to be on his guard not to fall into the temptation to talk 
too much. The need of explanation is in itself evidence that the 
assimilative material is either insufficient or not well focused or 
perhaps lacking in clarity. The teacher should keep notes and in 
the reorganization of the unit for the next course endeavor to 
correct the fault. Other things being equal, more explanation is 
required in the early.stages of the secondary period than in the 
later. 

Some units at high-school level are so extended that sub- 
presentations are required. For instance, the unit in history en- 
titled ““The Westward Movement”’ (see chap. xii) has four ma- 


ASSIMILATION 269 


jor elements, in each of which a presentation is sometimes, but 
not always, useful. The presentation deals with the unit as a 
whole. Then each of these major elements is given a sub-presen- 
tation within the assimilation period when the class as a whole 
reaches the point. Some of the more successful students, how- 
ever, pass over these points without taking the successive sub- 
presentations, and some of the more mature classes need none. 
While the principle of sub-presentation must be recognized, its 
tendency to lead the teacher astray must also be kept clearly in 
mind. 

In the first place, the teacher who has a tendency to forma- 
lize and routinize all procedure is in danger of making sub-pres- 
entations to classes which are mature enough to carry the whole 
sweep of the more extensive units. In that case, as in all similar 
instances, formalism tends to inhibit the development of self-de- 
pendence. 

In the second place, the unwary teacher is likely to find that 
overindulgence in sub-presentations has led him to destroy his 
units and to substitute for them a series of non-sequential sub- 
units. For instance, overinsistence on the major aspects of ““The 
Westward Movement” may well cause the Westward Movement 
as the significant understanding to disappear altogether. 

In the elementary school and the junior high school, a unit 
which needs sub-presentations is probably too extensive any- 
way. In the junior college, students should be sufficiently ma- 
ture to be able to take the whole sweep of any unit on the main 
presentation. Perhaps we may say that, in general, the sub-pres- 
entation units are characteristic of the senior high school. 

There sometimes occurs a unit in which a body of principles 
learned can advantageously be pushed to a farther limit, all 
within the same unit, by the use of what we may call post-pres- 
entation. An illustration can be found in the second unit in ele- 
mentary arithmetic (see chap. xiii, p. 200). The fundamental 
unit is addition and subtraction, and addition and subtraction as 
applied to denominate numbers is pedagogically part of the unit, 


270 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


but this last part does not present itself naturally in the assimi- 
lation period. A young pupil does not see how to handle denom- 
inate numbers without specific teaching. Hence, when assimila- 
tion as applied to the fundamental unit is nearly complete, the 
teacher announces to the class in substance, ‘“Now, if we needed 
to add or subtract numbers like 5 gallons, 3 quarts, 1 pint; and 
6 gallons, 2 quarts, and 1 pint, it is just like what we have al- 
ready done, and I am going to show you how.” Then follows a 
post-presentation within the assimilation period. The result is 
economy in the learning process, for the carrying and borrowing 
principle is much more suggestive in denominate numbers than 
in the decimal system, and economy in time. Of course the mate- 
rial thus handled can always be set up as a separate and addi- 
tional unit, if the teacher does not feel able to carry the class 
with her throughout post-presentation. If the whole pedagogical 
unit is thus taught through the agency of post-presentation, the 
assimilation process continues. Assimilation testing is applied to 
the unit as a whole, and so are the two steps which make up the 
reaction member of the learning cycle. 

The use of post-presentation is subject to the same dangers 
as are explanation and sub-presentation. The teacher who over- 
indulges in this aspect of technique may well find herself “carry- 
ing the class on her back” to the utter inhibition of the develop- 
ment of the will to learn, perhaps the most common bane of 
school work. In general, post-presentation should be used only 
when the nature of the unit itself calls for it, not when the teach- 
er merely thinks that “They don’t seem to understand very 
well.” The condition suggested by the quoted remark may well 
be cause for reconsideration of the whole teaching procedure on 
the unit and return to presentation itself. It is not occasion for 
post-presentation. 

THE SUPERVISION OF STUDY 

The assimilation period is obviously one of supervised study. 

Now the terms “supervised” and “directed” as applied to 
study have certain unfortunate connotations. The essence of 


ASSIMILATION 271 


supervised study is the provision of right opportunity for study 
and training in study habits and not the supervision of study if 
by supervision is meant compelling the pupils to study according 
to the teacher’s preconceptions or according to formal rules. As 
we have seen, the conditions of study are motives, objectives, the 
needed tools, the material. Supervised study has chiefly to do 
with the tools and the material. It is further concerned with the 
development of that volitional basis for study which we call the 
“power of sustained application.” 

The study tools ——The study tool par excellence is reading. 
In fact, that form of study which consists in learning from books 
is in the main simply intensive and extensive reading. We may 
well utilize this principle as our point of departure. 

Let us assume that our pupils when they were at second- or 
third-grade level did in fact acquire the primary reading adapta- 
tion, that is, that they became able to read the thought of the 
printed page without focal consciousness of words and other iso- 
lated elements. We are likely to find some even in the senior 
high school and junior college who have not done so, and these 
we shall consider later, together with other problem cases. Pu- 
pils who have arrived at the reading adaptation and who have 
read abundantly and extensively have usually still to learn the 
art of reading intensively, which may be defined as “getting the 
thought and all the thought.” 

The teacher of reading recognizes the principle and pro- 
vides for specific instruction in intensive reading at the regular 
reading period. Such a plan of campaign must rest on the ex- 
pectation of transfer of training. If we continue this process of 
general training in intensive reading, we shall undoubtedly se- 
cure progressively higher scores on tests given for the purpose 
of measuring the ability which is being developed. But shall we 
_ get a transfer to intensive reading ability in arithmetic, geog- 
raphy, history, science, and soon? Weshall get varying amounts 
of transfer in different pupils depending upon the chance that 
the pupil has developed wholly or in part a generalized adapta- 


272 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


tion, that is to say, that he has come to see that this power which 
he is acquiring applies to everything he reads. Chance is the ne- 
gation of scientific procedure. If we adopt here as our specific 
objective generalized ability in intensive reading, we shall suc- 
ceed only if we use materials from every sort of reading which 
the pupil has to use. Intensive reading in mathematics is one 
thing, in geography another, in natural science a third, and so 
on. In each, the ability is in part conditioned on the concepts 
peculiar to the subject. Learning geography, for instance, is in 
large part learning to read in geographical terms, with the geo- 
graphical vocabulary, and within the field of geographical con- 
cepts. Evidently, then, the use of reading periods for training 
pupils in the art of intensive reading implies practically that all 
the content subjects, including literature, shall be taught in the 
reading period, a palpable absurdity. Hence, let us turn the 
problem about and look at the other side. Instead of training 
pupils in intensive reading in a reading class, let us utilize inten- 
sive reading as the most important aspect of study in the assimi- 
lation period in science-type subjects throughout the school and 
recognize the principle that development of intensive reading 
ability is simply development of one form of study ability. 

We may then imagine ourselves at the beginning of the as- 
similation period in arithmetic, or in an extensive content sub- 
ject, in the early elementary part of the secondary period. One 
of the first things to do will be to select a series of problems from 
the arithmetic, or a passage from the basal text in another sub- 
ject, and focus upon it a series of written questions touching the 
content and requiring intensive reading. The pupils, with books 
open before them, find the answers from the text and write them. 
The items of the test are then scored right and wrong, and the 
scored test paper of. each pupil is returned. The teacher now 
takes the book, and the scores and a period of instruction some- 
thing like the following takes place: 

‘‘Nobody could find the answer to Question 7, and yet the 
book says plainly . You all see it now. 





ASSIMILATION 273 


“Fred answers Question 11 in this way [quotes], and yet the 
book says just this. Fred did not read carefully. 

“George and Henry and Mabel didn’t find the answer to 
Question 5, but everybody else did. So it must be that these pu- 
pils could have done so if they had read carefully enough, for 
you see how plainly it says 

“Now, we are all going to try again and see how much we 
can improve our scores.” 

The training effect is much the same as that of the sustained- 
application profile described in chapter ix. The pupil is made 
acutely conscious of what is required of him, he is shown where- 
in his failure consists, and he is induced to improve his score. 
But that is not enough. Improving his score in the subject which 
he is studying will in most cases result merely in improving his 
score unless the pupil is convinced that he has thus learned an 
art which is of great value to him in all his study both now and 
henceforth. Several other similar tests on other material are 
given during the assimilation period and the results compared 
with those of the first test, which was set before the period of 
training began. And so the process is continued throughout the 
elementary school, perhaps throughout the junior high school, 
and very possibly well into the senior high school and junior col- 
lege. If systematic teaching is new in the school, certainly noth- 
ing should be taken for granted touching the abilities of senior 
high school and junior college pupils. 

Even before the end of the elementary-school period, cer- 
tain pupils will show intensive reading ability fully up to the re- 
quirements of the course in which they are studying. Such pupils 
are then released from training. The effect of such release is 
threefold. It saves time and energy. It gives us a definite and 
positive piece of evidence bearing upon individual-study superi- 
ority. More important than either, it is another experience 
among many which help the pupils all to realize that learning is 
an inward growth and not merely satisfying the teacher with ac- 
ceptable performance. The pupils who are released from train- 





274 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


ing at, let us say, fifth-grade level may need, however, to be 
brought under training again when they reach the more mature 
and exacting material of the high school. Early test results and 
failure of certain pupils to improve under training may set off 
the early problem cases and throw some preliminary light on the 
correct diagnoses. 

Such specific, systematic training in intensive reading ability 
is the foundation of training in study ability, but as time goes on 
and more extended reading material is used for study purposes, 
pupils will probably need to be given many bits of advice as to 
methods of reading extensively. Such training is, however, lan- 
guage-arts teaching and it must conform to the principles of that 
type (see chap. xxiv). The important consideration is that the 
pupil must not be made focally conscious of details of method. 
He should not, for instance, be told first to look for this and then 
for that. Instruction must be directed to the reading in its exten- 
sive aspect, and pupil consciousness must be focused upon the 
reading as a whole. For instance, in their extensive reading, pu- 
pils may be told first to read a whole chapter and let the general 
drift manifest itself; then to read it again and perhaps a third 
time until the understanding seems to come to them clearly and 
they begin to feel a sense of familiarity; finally, to note rela- 
tively obscure passages and to read them intensively. The 
objective is to train pupils not in reading intensively material 
which is in its nature extensive but rather to train them in thor- 
oughly reading extensive material. 

To give advice touching extensive reading is not enough; we 
must ascertain whether or not the advice has taken effect. For 
this purpose, much the same sort of test is employed as in the 
case of intensive reading. A passage is chosen, preferably from 
a book in the hands of the pupils, to which extensive reading is 
appropriate. A set of questions is prepared calculated to bring 
out the salient points which the passage read is intended to elu- 
cidate. The passage chosen is long enough and the questions 
asked are numerous enough so that no pupil is likely to read the 


ASSIMILATION 275 


whole passage and react correctly to all the test items in the time 
allowed. The time allowance is of any convenient length, not too 
long to destroy the value of the test—say, from two to five min- 
utes, depending upon the level in the school career at which the 
test is given. Instructions are given somewhat in the following 
manner. 

“We are going to try to find out how well you can rapidly 
read a passage in one of your books and still catch as much of 
the meaning as possible. For that purpose we shall use a passage 
beginning at on page of [naming the book]. Let 
us find the place now. Have all found it? 

“Very well. Now when I give the signal, begin to read and 
read about as you usually do with this book until I give the sig- 
nal ‘Stop.’ Then mark a circle around the last word read and 
lay the books aside.” 

This part of the test is carried out, the test questions, which 
have already been distributed and have been lying face down on 
the desks, are taken up and the questions answered. The pupils 
are then instructed to count words read and write the numbers 
on their test papers. The papers are then scored, the results dis- 
tributed in much the form indicated later for assimilation test- 
ing, and the exhibit placed before the class. The teacher thus 
has, first, an extensive reading test; and, second, a rate test on 
extensive reading. Each pupil has a concrete exhibit of his 
achievement, and he thus becomes aware of his shortcomings 
and their nature. The process of training now begins. 

“T think that perhaps it would be interesting tomorrow,” 
says the teacher, “to see how much we can improve our scores 
on this same test.”’ This procedure tends to accomplish two 
things. In the first place, when the scores of the retest are com- 
pared with those of the original and with those attained on sub- 
sequent fresh test material, the pupils who have a lesson-learn- 
ing tendency are noted. Second, the pupils enter upon the retest 
with a consciousness of the nature of specific deficiencies and 
secure practice in improving performance with respect to those 








276 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


deficiencies. They acquire an experience of improvement. The 
class is then told that a new test will be given within perhaps a 
week, and the intention is to see how much improvement there 
will be. The process is repeated at intervals throughout the as- 
similation and should similarly be done in other courses which 
are using extensive material. Certajn comments touching testing 
of this character are perhaps not out of place. 

There are three variables in the test, namely, extensive read- 
ing in itself, rate, and holding in memory long enough to react to 
the test items. The test is therefore not a good one for precise 
scientific investigation, unless the investigator can make due 
allowance for the presence of these variables, particularly the 
first and last. On the other hand, in the study process, it is just 
this complex of the three variables which is used and which 
therefore becomes the appropriate objective of training. The 
three variables together are an index of assimilative capacity in 
extensive reading. 

As in all testing, the results of which are used as guides in 
corrective teaching, the teacher is less concerned with the test 
scores than with analysis of the test results. It is the latter which 
gives us our best light upon the pupil and his needs. Here, for 
instance, is a pupil who reads very rapidly and partly for that 
reason makes a high score. Another reads slowly and similarly 
makes a low score. If now we compare the two in terms of the 
number of words read per test question correctly answered, we 
find that the second has a better record. In still another case, 
the pupil has read very slowly but he has answered correctly 
every question within the scope of the ground he has covered. 
Number I needs to be told not to read less rapidly but to im- 
prove his assimilation of what he reads. Number II should hold 
fast to his assimilative ability but try to read more rapidly. 
Number III is probably reading intensively, and he should be 
made aware of the difference between the two kinds of reading. 

In selecting material for the different and successive tests, 
care must be used to find passages which are comparable in diffi- 


ASSIMILATION 277 


culty. If we were conducting critical and precise investigations, 
we should need some objective standards on this issue. We are 
not conducting such studies, however, but rather training nor- 
mal children in study capacity. If the teacher uses good judg- 
ment in selecting passages, and especially if he uses the same 
book, he is not likely to go far wrong. 

In order to cover the very extensive reading required in the 
assimilative process, the pupil must be able to read with opti- 
mum rapidity. Otherwise he will be severely handicapped in his 
rate of learning. The essential point is the optimum rate for the 
individual pupil and not the maximum rate. Pupil temperament 
enters critically here. Some are phlegmatic, and all of their ac- 
tivities are carried out in a slow and deliberate fashion. Others 
are nervous, quick-motioned, and their activity is always at high 
speed. Others still are capable of working at good rate but are 
inclined to loiter. Now pupils who are in reality naturally slow 
and deliberate workers cannot ordinarily be speeded up without 
more or less disastrous effects. Further, they are quite likely to 
make up in thoroughness and assimilative capacity what they 
lose in their slow rate. It is, however, with the loiterers that we 
are particularly concerned. 

Accordingly, it is well to administer early in the assimilation 
period, in an early unit, one of the standard reading tests in 
silent reading which has a rate component. The loiterers will 
thus become detected, and training of the type described above 
may be set up. It may well be that we shall find the greater part 
of a class reading below the standard rate, and in that case we 
shall need of course to see that every teacher in content subjects 
is carrying on a training campaign. In the cases of individual 
pupils, we are likely to find instances in which the pupil reads at 
standard rate but is still a loiterer. The author knows of no 
ready objective means of distinguishing between such pupils and 
those who are really reading up to the rate set by their normal 
reactive tendencies. Nevertheless, the observant teacher can 
usually form a shrewd judgment by noting the pupil’s general 


278 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


activity in periods of unsupervised behavior and comparing him 
with others both in that respect and in his tested rate of reading. 
Reading is the fundamental and most important study tool, 
but it is not the only one. Perhaps next in order is handwriting. 
The presentation test, the assimilation period, the written 
recitation, in fact all school work in which pupil reaction is im- 
portant, rests heavily upon rate and legibility of handwriting. 
Within certain limitations, it is relatively easy to develop the 
handwriting skills in a handwriting period, but the skills thus de- 
veloped transfer to handwriting in general only as the individual 
pupil acquires a handwriting ideal, and this is a matter of 
chance, apart from systematic mastery development. The ines- 
capable conditions of schoolroom work require that this general- 
ized adaptation must be set up in the growing pupil through 
training in every situation in which he has occasion to use hand- 
writing. If the teacher is concerned with handwriting only in the 
handwriting period or if only a special handwriting teacher is so 
concerned, the pupil, in all but the chance cases, relapses into his 
naive performance when the specific constraint is removed. 
Hence, every teacher in every period in which handwriting is 
used, until the required skills have been permanently estab- 
lished, must be a handwriting teacher. This does not imply that 
the handwriting drill must be carried on in the content subjects. 
That is constructive work which belongs properly to the hand- 
writing period. It does mean, however, that the teacher in other 
periods must heed such matters as handwriting position and 
penholding, and above all must accept from each pupil only his 
standard performance. The appropriate attitude for the teacher 
to take when a slovenly paper is handed in is the following: 
“Frank, my boy, this is the way you write when you try [ex- 
hibiting a good paper]. Now look at this paper and see how dif- 
ferent it is. The purpose of your practice in handwriting is to 
teach you to write well whenever you write at all. It is of no use 
for you to give me a paper like this for I shall always turn it 
back to be done over again.” Frank’s rejoinder is likely to be, 


——— 


ASSIMILATION 279 





“But, Miss , if I try hard on my handwriting, I can’t 
think what to write.’”’ The answer is, “Yes, I understand how 
that is, but that is one of the things you have to learn to do. You 
will soon learn to write well and be able to think all the time you 
are writing.” 

In the establishment of good handwriting habits, legibility is 
of course the primary consideration, in the sense that rate which 
is gained at the expense of legibility is of little value from any 
point of view. Rate is, nevertheless, in itself the practically 
valuable product from the point of view of use as a tool. One en- 
counters cases in which rate is abnormally slow; the pupil re- 
quires an incredible amount of time for putting in writing the 
simplest passage. Some of these are the problem cases which re- 
quire remedial reconstruction of the fundamental writing adap- 
tation. As to the others, much the same procedure is used which 
has been described in the case of rate in reading. The pupil is 
not pushed beyond his natural reactive rate, but stimulus and 
guidance are applied to bring him up to his normal rate. 

A third fundamental tool in study is the application of the 
mathematical concepts and processes which the pupil has learned 
in arithmetic or in other mathematics. There seem to be two 
considerations involved here. In the first place, application to 
situations found in science, the home economics courses, and 
shop are good functional tests of the reality of the learning prod- 
ucts assumed to have been established in mathematics courses; 
and, second, the courses last named are parts of the total situa- 
tion in which the pupil masters his mathematics. Let us consider 
the last point first. 

If the school holds that all mathematics must be finally and 
definitely mastered in the mathematics period or department, 
then it must arrange to have all subjects in which mathematics is 
used taught by the mathematics department, an evident impossi- 
bility. The alternative is to have mathematical applications 
taught by all the departments in which mathematics is used, as 
well as by the mathematics department. Now the practical prob- 


280 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


lem most commonly met here is much the same as that met in 
reading, handwriting, and composition. Pupils become so thor- 
oughly and fundamentally obsessed with the lesson-learning at- 
titude and the idea of satisfactory class performance that they 
do not generalize their learning. This is mathematics. This prin- 
ciple the pupil has learned; he can apply it to any problem which 
the mathematics teacher proposes. And yet if the same principle 
and problem appear in physics or the shop he stands helpless. In 
brief, a part of the mathematics learning product is apparently 
the volitional adaptation in terms of which the learner makes the 
effort to use the principle wherever it is needed. The teacher’s 
attitude should be, ‘You have learned that principle for I have 
talked with Mr. and he tells me that you have. Now you 
must use it when you need it. Your trouble is not that you do 
not know; you do not make the effort to apply.” The pupil’s re- 
joinder is likely to be, ‘But, that was in mathematics [or even it 
was last month] and this is physics. It is not ‘fair’ to ‘mark’ me 
on mathematics in the physics class.”’ One sees at once that the 
pupil has not acquired the whole of the mathematics learning 
product. He has learned a principle as mathematics, but he has 
not learned it as a usable implement for interpreting the world 
of reality outside of the mathematics classroom. No doubt the 
mathematics teacher thought he had done so, but subsequent ex- 
perience shows that he had not. The mathematics teacher may 
even have had good evidence of mastery, and yet the evidence 
may appear in the event to have been inconclusive. 

Now the mathematics department of the high school, and 
the elementary-school teacher in the arithmetic period, have a 
heavy responsibility for generalizing the teaching, as they go 
along through the course, by convincing the pupil that what is 
learned in mathematics is not only usable but must be used con- 
stantly in the school and in life outside the school. Likewise, as 
we have already seen (chap. xiii), the assimilative material in 
the mathematics unit must be so selected from the pupil’s actual 
experience, including his school experience, that his learning will 





ASSIMILATION 281 


be capable of generalization. None the less, the teachers in other 
than mathematics periods or departments have an equal respon- 
sibility for contributing their essential part to the establishment 
of the generalization when such is necessary. If they confine 
themselves to deploring the failure of the mathematics teaching, 
they will not only fail to do their part but they will exert a posi- 
tively detrimental influence in convincing the pupil anew that 
his education depends upon the teacher entirely and on himself 
not at all. In the senior high school and junior college especially, 
the attitude of the teacher may well be, ““You are presumed to 
have mastered this elementary arithmetic or algebra or geom- 
etry. You cannot make progress in this course without such 
mastery. I am not going to teach you over again. I advise you 
to secure a text and reteach yourself.” 

On the other hand, the use of mathematical principles in 
other periods and departments must be viewed as being in part a 
functional test of the mathematical learning products. It will 
not do merely to assume, when the pupil has reacted correctly to 
all mastery tests which can be set by the mathematics teacher, 
that all subsequent responsibility rests upon the teachers who 
use the principles. As we have seen, much responsibility does 
rest there. Nevertheless, transfer failure always raises questions 
touching the organization of the mathematics courses, their as- 
similative material, and the thoroughness and intelligence of the 
teacher’s own application of his teaching and testing technique. 
Year by year, loyal acceptance of the functional tests on the 
part of the mathematics department, scrutiny of the results, re- 
consideration of the course organization, of the material, and of 
the teacher’s efficiency, will do much to found mathematics 
teaching in the school upon a permanent and effective basis. 

A study tool which is often overlooked is that of graphic rep- 
resentation. The pupil who has the ability to sketch rapidly and 
correctly the appliances and to picture correctly the processes 
found in the physical, biological, and earth sciences is in posses- 
sion of a tool which is of immense assistance in establishing ef- 


282 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


fective assimilation and sense of reality. Precisely the same 
principles which apply to the use of reading, handwriting, and 
mathematical principles and processes in study apply to the use 
of drawing. Precisely the same type of co-ordination between 
different subjects and different departments is required. If the 
pupil has been effectively taught the art of graphic representa- 
tion so that it will function outside of the drawing period and 
the art department, he will tend naturally to make large use of 
the ability in his study of science-type units. If he has been ef- 
fectively taught and does not use the ability, it is the business of 
the teacher who is teaching him how to study to see that he does 
use his ability in the situations in which its use is serviceable. If 
he has not been effectively taught in drawing, it is still important 
that the supervisor of study shall not only show him how to use 
such ability as he has but shall give the class simple lessons in 
such drawing as is needed and useful. 

Finally, an essential tool of study is the effective use of Eng- 
lish writing. We have had, however, and shall have occasion to 
study its use in other connections (see especially chaps. xv, xvii, 
and xxvi), and hence need only to note here that it is such a tool. 
It is, in fact, of much more significance in other parts of the 
teaching cycle than in assimilation. 

In our consideration of the tools of study, the use and devel- 
opment of which is a large part of the teacher’s duty in super- 
vised study, it is constantly apparent that effective study is in 
large part a function of school co-ordination and integrity. 
Hence the supervision of the school as a whole has a very large 
part to play in the development of study capacity in the pupils. 
If each department in a school which is concerned with the gen- 
eral education of youth is going its own way, absorbed in its own 
problems, with scant concern for the process of education as 
such, the effect will be seen in ineffective study habits perhaps 
more than in any other one respect. 

Training pupils in their use of the tools of study, co-ordinat- 
ing and focusing such use upon the study of units in subjects 


ASSIMILATION 283 


_ which belong to the science type, is the principal practical task 
_ of the teacher in supervised study, particularly in the elemen- 
| tary school and in the junior high school. Next perhaps in order 
| of importance is putting the pupil in contact with the materials 
} of assimilation. 

The materials of study —Of such materials the most obvious 
| are of course to be found in books. If the pupil has learned only 
to master a basal textbook, he has in the main been taught only 
| how to read intensively. He will rarely develop into intellectual 
. - self-dependence along that line. He must be made aware of the 
_ vast resources outside of the textbook, put in contact with them, 

and shown how to use them. | 

| For such purposes, guide sheets are furnished. These are es- 
sentially lists of references to reading material which expands 
the content of the basal text and focuses upon a broader under- 
standing of the unit. In the elementary school, as early as the 
fourth grade, these guide sheets may be in the form of questions 
not unlike the “seek further” questions sometimes found at the 
end of chapters in textbooks; only each question is accompanied 
_ by one or more references. The pupil is required to keep a note- 
_ book in which he records his answers. Thus he takes the first 
steps in research and the art of note-taking. Later, the question 
_ form is dispensed with and the guide sheet contains simply ref- 
- erences on the unit, which the pupil is expected to find for him- 
self. Later still, at senior high school level when pupils have 
been trained from the beginning of the secondary period, no 
_ guide sheet is furnished. The pupil has now become a student, 
_ possessed of sufficient intellectual self-dependence to use the re- 
- sources of a well-stocked study-room, if not the school library 
_ itself, even if he has not yet arrived at the stage at which he can 
_ formulate his own problems and pursue them to a successful 
solution. 

. But the books on the study-room book tables are not the 
_ only materials of the assimilation period. There is apt to be a 
_ wealth of material discoverable outside the classroom, and if the 





284 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


pupils are invited to bring in all the material touching upon the 
unit which they can find, there will not only appear in the class- 
room an abundance of newspaper clippings, pictorial illustra- 
tions, science and history realien, additional book material 
loaned from home libraries, and the like, but, what is more im- 
portant, there will be established in the pupils a useful aware- 
ness that not all the needful material of learning is found in the 
textbook or even in the school. 

In the physical and biological sciences, particularly in the 
senior high school and junior college, laboratory exercises be- 
long to the assimilation period and are an important part of the 
teacher’s concern in supervised study. Here the teacher becomes 
essentially a foreman. 

Laboratory exercises which are carried on independently of 
any effective supervision are pretty apt to be perfunctory at the 
best and dawdling periods of loafing at the worst. In the early 
part of a first course in laboratory science, several explanatory 
class exercises in the mere manipulation of apparatus are usual- 
ly necessary. Beyond that, individual pupils need to be watched 
in this respect and shown the right way of doing things instead 
of being allowed to perform in a bungling and wholly childish 
fashion (see also chapters on the practical-arts type). 

Laboratory exercises imply laboratory notebooks, not the 
kind in which everything is prearranged for the pupil so that he 
has nothing to do but enter the data which are called for by the 
blank spaces, but preferably notebooks of ample and convenient 
size made up of blank pages and so arranged that pages of co- 
ordinate paper and the like can be inserted as needed. When the 
pupil has worked out his exercise, made his notes on slips of 
paper, and finally written up the exercise in his own way without 
the stereotyped conclusion “From this we learn, etc.,”’ he brings 
the book to the teacher, who accepts it as a creditable and sig- 
nificant piece of work or else rejects it and sends the pupil back 
to re-write or perhaps to go over the whole exercise from the 
beginning. 





ASSIMILATION 285 


Effective supervision of laboratory study depends more per- 
haps than does anything else in the assimilation period upon 
good arrangement of the classroom. The teacher who is obliged 
to walk from one end of a large room to the opposite end, and 
perhaps to travel around a long chemistry table, in order to pass 
from one pupil who needs guidance to the next is badly handi- 
capped in the supervision of study. Perhaps the best arrange- 
ment of laboratory tables is the |_] in which the teacher’s super- 
vising position is inside and the pupils’ study desks somewhat in 
front of and away from the arms of the |]. What applies to the 
laboratory in physical and biological science applies also to lab- 
oratory work in certain courses in household arts, and to the 
drawing tables used in a well-furnished course in mathematics. 

Concentration.—Supervised study is further concerned with 
training which goes to the root of all effort, namely, ability to 
work whole-heartedly and continuously, that is to say, sustained 
application. In chapter ix we have seen the bearing of this prob- 
lem and the process which is calculated to lead to its solution. It 
only remains to note that while sustained application is critical 
of learning power throughout the school, it is required in the 
assimilation period in science-type subjects more vitally than 
anywhere else. Our treatment of the problem in chapter ix is es- 
sentially a part of our exposition of the principles of supervised 
study. 

THE PROBLEM CASE IN SUPERVISED STUDY 


Problem-case work is a volume by itself. We shall have oc- 


- casion to discuss it at some length, in its relation to the whole 
Matter of teaching in the secondary period, in Part IV (see 
_ chapter xxxi). It will perhaps be useful to note here some of its 


special applications to the problem of supervised study in the 


assimilation period. 


In a very true sense every pupil is a problem if we expand 
the term to include the teacher’s concern for every individual, 
but in the use which we make of the expression “problem case”’ 


in this volume we have in mind only those pupils in whom there 


7 


is some obstacle to the normal functioning of the learning proc- — 
ess. It is a rare class indeed in which there are no such cases, 
but faithful and effective mastery teaching, from the beginning 
of the school career, with its emphasis upon reteaching, upon 
corrective teaching, and upon remedial case work, and effective © 
organization of the school for this purpose, must greatly reduce — 
the percentage of such cases found from year to year as the class 
progresses through the school. | 
Soon after the pupils enter upon supervised study in the first — 
unit of a course the teacher begins to survey the class and to — 
note the evidences of individual problem situations. 
First of all, perhaps, he notes the cases of markedly poor 
sustained application and sets them aside for attention. A brief 
explanatory talk to the class may set the process of improve- — 
ment at work, but in a day or two the real problems will have 
developed and then the process of profiling, pupil interviews, and — 
training begins. 
Next in order he notes the pupils who are making slow prog- — 
ress in assimilation, and the following questions arise. We shall — 
consider them somewhat in the appropriate order of attention. 
1. Reading cases-—-The pupil may never have actually 
learned to read. He is not merely lacking the reading adapta- 
tion; he cannot read at all, in the sense of being able to get the 
thought from the printed page. He comes perhaps from a school — 
in which attention has been exclusively upon oral reading and, 
since he can pronounce words in discourse, he has slipped 
through. One of the standard comprehension tests will ordinarily — 
disclose the situation. It is useless for this pupil to go on with 
the course. He is removed and sent to the remedial room to be © 
taught to read. These cases are rare above the elementary-_ 
school level, but they are sometimes found even in the junior col- 
lege when the student has originated in a lesson-learning routine - 
type of school system. Cases are not unknown in which pupils’ 
have contrived to learn enough by listening to others thus to get 
along a goodly distance indeed in the pathways of the schools. 


286 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 
















— - 


ASSIMILATION 237 


The pupil may be a decipherer. That is, he gets the thought 
of the printed page in a slow and laborious fashion. His reading 
is much like that of the person who has only a “translation 
knowledge” of an ancient language. He can puzzle out a passage 
and get the thought but he reads slowly and assimilates slowly 
or not at all. As we have seen, effective assimilative ability im- 
plies the ability to assimilate as one reads, and this in turn im- 
plies ability to look through the printed page to the discourse 
beyond without focal consciousness of the words. The net result 
of deciphering is abnormally slow study and many repetitions 
after the assimilation tests. Such pupils can usually be identified 
by observation of the eye movements. For this purpose the pu- 
pil is given a passage to read, silently, and after he has been 
reading for a few minutes the teacher takes a position such that 
he can observe the movement of the eye without gazing directly 
in the pupil’s line of vision. It will at once be seen that the eye 
movements can be detected. Now the normal reader’s eye fixa- 
tions across the ordinary 12-mo. page are something like this: 

z 2 S 4 5 
2 t 3 4 5 

The numerals indicate the order of eye fixations. 

Movements of slight confusion especially at the beginning of 
a line may occur, but in general the fixations proceed regularly 
across the page and they will be from four to six or perhaps 
seven or eight. The decipherer’s movements are more like the 
representation given below. There are many more fixations and 
more confusion as the eye moves backward and forward, to bring 
individual words into focus. 


—— i | OS 3 owe Oe 0G 0 GES 0 ee 0 ES Se 


Burs wet A ORO ON (Sento Tae 4 673116, 55.27 19 


288 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


The illustration given does not exhibit the whole story, for 
the regressive movements take place not only within the line but 
backward to preceding lines. The regressive movement within 
the line is detected by noting a slight hesitation in the jerky 
movement of the eye as it rolls across the page. In the upward 
regression, the eye hesitates and rolls upward. Now this upward 
movement seems to be what differentiates the decipherer from 
the pure word-reader who is getting no meaning but is simply do- 
ing silent oral reading. We assume, however, that the latter 
characteristic has been eliminated from the problem through the 
comprehension test. It should be noted here that we are con- 
trasting typical situations and not merely counting eye move- 
ments. The normal reader will, for instance, occasionally show — 
an upward regressive movement, but his case is typically differ- 
ent from that of the pupil who is evidently blundering his way 
through by constant regressions. 

In studying decipherers two important considerations are to 
be noted. 

In the first place, we are all decipherers on that kind of in- 
tensive reading which is used on discourse like mathematical 
problems and legal documents, in which the meaning value of 
single words is paramount. Hence the test material must be 
simple and relatively familiar discourse which calls for extensive 
rather than for meticulous intensive reading. 

In the second place, the teacher must establish rapport, that 
is, he must wait until the pupil is in a normal attitude. Testers 
frequently force children into acutely self-conscious attitudes 
and in that way ruin the value of the test disclosures. A good 
tester is one who understands children and is accustomed to 
deal with them. 

The decipherer requires remedial work with quick percep- 
tion devices, but he is not necessarily excluded from the class. 
Training in a remedial group in mild cases can be carried on sim- 
ultaneously with progress in the science type. 

2. Experiential (intellectual) deficiency.—This type of 


ASSIMILATION 289 


problem is the pupil who has not the requisite apperceptive 
background, that is to say, he is not prepared to take the course. 
After a few years of systematic teaching, these pupils should be 
limited to those who have come in from other school systems. 
They are usually the result of non-mastery promotions. Effect- 
ive work in the exploration, with individual conference work, 
should identify some of the cases, but some will slip through to 
the assimilation period. In studying the problem cases, after 
sustained application and bad reading habits have been elimi- 
nated as causes, individual experience with the pupil may very 
probably reveal intellectual deficiency as the cause. The teach- 
er’s attitude should be, “Are there certain obvious and funda- 
mental needs in the background of this course of which this 
pupil is plainly ignorant?” Not, “Can this pupil satisfy me that 
he knows enough to take the course?” For the most part, such 
pupils are promptly located in the course in which they belong 
and not left to fail and repeat and fail again in this course. 
Sometimes simple cases, if the pupils are relatively mature, can 
be located in the elementary course, either in the same or an- 
other department, and allowed to carry both the elementary and 
advanced courses simultaneously. 

3. Learning perversions——Pupils who have been accus- 
tomed to the lesson-learning technique without supervised study 
and individual case work are apt to have developed practices 
which either obstruct learning or even inhibit it altogether. The 
instances are legion, and a volume could be devoted to the sub- 
ject. We can only enumerate a few typical instances by way of 
illustration. 

a) The first of these is the lesson-learner type which we 
studied in chapter iv. Ordinarily these pupils have a hard time 
of it under mastery teaching at first, but they usually become 
adjusted without special corrective work. Extreme cases do, 
however, occur of which the following contributed by one of my 
students is an example: 


290 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


A little girl whose intelligence tests placed her two years in ad- 
vance of her chronological age was inferior in history. Her mother 
said she knew the child tried because she brought her book home eve- 
nings and an older sister helped her by reading the lesson aloud and 
letting her say as much of it as she could. 

In such a case, the home persistently inhibits the adjustment 
which the school might otherwise make. It is one thing to break 
down the lesson-learning and rank-in-class attitude in the pupil 
and quite another to break it down in the parent. And yet in 
many cases like the one just cited, corrective work must be ap- 
plied to the parent instead of to the pupil. In the laboratory 
schools, progress is frequently obstructed by parents who insist 
on having tutoring done. Sometimes, after being remonstrated 
with by the principal, the process is continued surreptitiously, 
so ingrained is the conviction that education consists in superi- 
ority to other pupils and in performance satisfactory to the 
teacher, rather than in a transformation in the pupil himself. In 
general, lesson-learning itself generates innumerable perversions. 

6) A problem-case pupil will sometimes have hit upon 
strange ways of doing things, which apart from individual case 
work escape detection and the pupil is eventually adjudged a 
non-learner. An illustration is found in the following case taken 
from Miss Lange’s study above quoted (see chap. ix, p. 141). 
The child in this instance was a remedial case in arithmetic. The 
case study revealed the fact that in adding a column of figures 
she would total the right-hand column and then instead of carry- 
ing properly would add the total to the tens column and so go on. 
A simple matter, and yet the pupil had been passed along from 
year to year with this defect in her learning tools. 

Not infrequently, especially in arithmetic and elementary 
algebra, a pupil invents a valid but unworkable method in a 
process. The ingenuity exhibited is often remarkable, but the 
child’s invention is ordinarily so cumbersome as to inhibit calcu- 
lations altogether as soon as they become at all complicated. In 


a ~~, 


t 
i 
hy 
4 
,) 
; 
+ 
9 
i 
if 





ASSIMILATION 291 


the end, the pupil is adjudged stupid and incapable in mathe- 
matics when the truth of the matter is exactly the reverse. 

c) A third defect perhaps uncommon, but still probably 
ever present, is that of the direct learner who not only will not 
learn from daily lessons but who has to be convinced of the real- 
ity of book notions before he will learn at all. The first case cited 
on page 59 of chapter ix is probably an instance of the type. 
Another is the following: 

A pupil of the direct-learner type, who makes a success of 
his school work in general, encounters the kind of permanent 
obstacle in algebra described below. 

So long as algebra consists in manipulation and the solution 
of problems, he learns without difficulty, except that he has a 
tendency to seek new lines which, while they are in themselves 
valid, do not conform to the plans sanctioned by the teacher and 
by effective mathematical procedure. He solves equations pros- 
perously as long as the only quantities encountered are the un- 
known and the numerical expressions which stand for valid re- 
ality in his mind. The crisis comes when expressions like a, b, 
and c are used which he is told stand for any numbers whatso- 
ever. Now most pupils will accept the convention and go on. 
This pupil balks and says, “If they stand for numbers, why 
don’t you use numbers?” No amount of explaining by the teach- 
er registers. There he stands. Teachers’ explanations in his 
mind are apparently plausible devices for making the worse 
cause appear the better. The only thing which will convince this 
pupil is an experience with a laborious arithmetical calculation 
and then an experience with the great economy made possible by 
generalizing the calculation through the use of algebraic meth- 
ods. After all, perhaps that is the only form of assimilation 
which really convinces any of the class. And yet algebra is of 
minor use as a usable intellectual tool unless the particular diffi- 
culty encountered by this pupil is mastered. 

4. There are several other probable causes lying behind 
problem cases which have no special application to assimilation 


292 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


in the science type. They are of general application in all types 

and as such are treated at length in Part IV. Of course the de- 

fects which we have noted above are found in other types of 

teaching but they are peculiarly apt to create problems in sci- 

ence-type work. Other classes of cases are merely enumerated 

here. They are: 

a) Health cases—import obvious from the name 

b) Psycho-physical cases—usually defective vision or hearing 

c) Emotional cases—a variety of personality disorders ranging all the 
way from a “grouch” against the teacher or adolescent shyness to 
positive psychopathic disorders 

d) Mental deficiency—positively low grade and inadequate general 
mental powers. The teacher is prone to fix upon this cause among 
the first, when as a matter of fact there are comparatively few out- 
and-out mental deficients 

€) Volitional—usually some form of volitional retardation (see chap- 
ter xxi) 


In general, the teacher who has the educational point of view 
will discover relatively few problem cases and will work at these 
with interest, fidelity, and diligence. By the end of the course, 
he will have restored some of them, perhaps all, to complete ad- 
justment in the learning situation with which he is dealing. The 
lesson-hearer will discover many problem cases and will desire 
to assign them all to remedial classes. 


ASSIMILATION TESTING 

The final mastery test, as far as the present teaching of the 
unit is concerned, comes in the assimilation period. Neverthe- 
less, the teacher and the school administration should recognize 
the principle that testing is never finished and that remote func- 
tional tests in later courses and other activities will very prob- 
ably throw much light on the reorganization of courses, correc- 
tions of the technique, and revaluation of the teacher’s efficiency. 
Here, as elsewhere, the test is for the purpose of discovering 
whether or not reteaching and corrective teaching need to be 


ASSIMILATION 293 


done and what needs to be done, and not for the purpose of grad- 
ing the pupil. 

As soon as assimilation is fairly under way and the problem- 
case campaign for the unit has been launched, the teacher be- 
gins to estimate the progress of the different pupils toward genu- 
ine mastery of the unit. No definite rule can be given. If the 
supervision of study from day to day has been alert and faithful 
and the teacher has kept in contact with the individual pupils 
through the questions which they have raised, the suggestions 
which they have made, and through individual conference with 
them, he will sense that A, C, and M are approaching the full 
understanding for which the unit stands. If, on the other hand, 
he merely notes that the pupils have completed the assigned 
reading, and the prescribed round of exercises, he has no evi- 
dence at all touching mastery. He has merely evidence touching 
ground covered and performance accomplished which may or 
may not be related to the inner adaptation which mastery pre- 
sumes. 

This following the mind of the pupil to the point at which 
the teacher senses adaptation is an instance of that procedure 
which we have called “rapport testing” in connection with its 
use in presentation. It is subjective and uncertain and insuffi- 
cient, but without it objective testing becomes wasteful and for- 
malistic. It is especially useful in the identification of early mas- 
tery. Without it the teacher will be likely to defer the assimila- 
tion test proper until some of the pupils have become stale in the 
long assimilation period. For those who have not mastered and 
are nowhere within reach of mastery, the administration of the 
assimilation test will not only waste time but the results are the 
more apt to be deceptive. No test is conclusive of the adaptation 
sought. The most that tests can do is to give the teacher the 
best possible basis for judgment, but in the end decisions are 
matters of the teacher’s judgment and not precise revelations. 
Two tests of different sorts are better than one, and an objective 
test following the teacher’s rapport testing is very much better 


204. THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


than an objective test applied before the teacher has any idea 
whether or not learning has taken place, provided that in the end 
he does not allow his subjective opinion to override the plain 
revelations of the objective results. 

The essence of the objective assimilation test is that it shall 
focus upon the unit just as exploration, presentation, and assimi- 
lation have focused upon the unit. There is, however, one other 
type of testing which is commonly employed, the implications of 
which should be understood. We have in mind the scored per- 
formance test intended to spread the class. 

The performance test, as applied to unit testing in the sci- 
ence type, consists of a series of test items all of them focused 
upon understanding and not upon assimilative material, and so 
arranged that all members of the class will be likely to react cor- 
rectly to one or more of the items and that nobody will be likely 
to react to all. Now, even under the assumption that all have 
mastered, the class will tend to distribute itself symmetrically 
and possibly according to the law of chance distribution. The 
scores revealed are not evidences of mastery but rather evi- 
dences of what the several pupils can do with mastery if indeed 
they have it. In other words, a performance test of this sort is 
only another form of general intelligence test. As such it is use- 
ful when we wish to secure data on the individual pupils. It is an 
excellent device for the study of general intelligence and for the 
comparison of intelligence in one subject with that in another. 
But it is not a test of mastery. By the very assumption on which 
it is founded, some pupils will score who have by no means mas- 
tered, and we have no means of judging how much of a high 
score is traceable to general intelligence and how much to mas- 
tery. 

The assimilation test proper is then one in which all ques- 
tions are of about the same degree of difficulty and so stated that 
pupils who understand the unit will be likely to react correctly 
while those who do not understand will be likely to react incor- 
rectly. Theoretically, a single test question might suffice if it 


ASSIMILATION 295 


were not for the practical possibility of mere chance being re- 
sponsible for the right response. The greater the number of 
questions, the less opportunity there is for chance to affect the 
total result. On the other hand, every pupil should have oppor- 
tunity to finish the test. If a time limit is imposed, the test tends 
to become a performance test or a general-intelligence test. It 
should be remembered that we are not concerned here with the 
question of how A compares with B but with the much more 
vital question of whether A and B have both mastered. 

The most serviceable form has been found to be that of the 
best answer. The ordinary written examination form may be 
used, but it will introduce another performance element, namely, 
proficiency in English exposition. The test used is like that al- 
ready described in the case of exploration (see chap. xv, p. 239). 
Fundamentally, each question in such a test sets up a choice be- 
tween three answers, one of which is obviously right to anybody 
who understands, but not to one who does not understand; one 
of which is wrong, and one is irrelevant. A more searching form 
is a test question in which two answers are exactly wrong, two 
are in general true, and one to a pupil who thoroughly under- 
stands is clearly the best answer. The pupil checks the best an- 
swer thus, —, and marks those which are wrong with crosses. It 
should perhaps be noted that we have much better evidence of 
the pupil’s state of mind when he marks both the right answer 
and one or more wrong answers than when he marks the best 
answer alone. The teacher then considers the result. In a given 
pupil’s paper each response is checked by the teacher either 
right or wrong. Table LX will help to make the matter of admin- 
istration clear. The Roman numerals across the top of the ex- 
hibit stand for the questions. 

The teacher now proceeds to consider the results. Plainly, 
the class as a whole is still vague on the unit. 

Before setting the test, the teacher was confident that Pupils 
2,3, 8, and 15 had mastered. The test confirms his opinion with 


296 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


reference to Pupil 3 and upsets his opinion with reference to 
Pupil 15. 

Now he notes that only one pupil reacted correctly to Ques- 
tion 3. Hence he suspects a “misfire,” that is, that the purport of 
the question did not register as he had intended. He studies the 
question, thinks he detects the cause, and after questioning some 
of the pupils his suspicion is verified. The question is corrected 
and the paper is filed for future use, perhaps with another sec- 
tion or in a later course. This decision puts Pupils 7 and 8 in the 


~ TABLE IX 


ASSIMILATION TEST RESULTS I 





XI | XII | Score 











ital la ee ee ee Te Lx 


eel ESCs Seb ae Pct 
IXEIXXXE EEE LEX |e 


— 

x 
isielito tot 1. fee Te) 
Ph ISP ee a lee hoe 


KX KK KKK KK KKK! KK 
ee ae a ee ae ae ig 
UE EXKIX TEX IX I XX | 


SOC C56 FC AS ee 


Ps Oe bE te OC et 
SEE Tae eo dt lee aie | 


mastery group, and he had not previously suspected that Pupil 7 
belonged there. He is still doubtful about Pupil 2, and further 
individual conference does not clear up the doubt. Pupils 9 and 
II are apparently problem cases, and Pupil 4 is known to be 
simply slow in comprehension. The latter comes through confi- 
dently in the end. 

The three pupils who have mastered are now released from 
assimilation for voluntary project work or work in other sub- 
jects, and the teacher proceeds to further assimilation with the 
remainder of the class. The test has been revealing in its nature 
and, as he reflects, he notes several points which can be cleared 


ASSIMILATION 207 


up by explanation, notes that some pupils are not strong in in- 
tensive reading, and that all need further assimilative experi- 
ence. It should be noted that his redirection of assimilation is 
critical. No corrective teaching is otherwise done. Simply to tell 
the pupils to read some more or to work some more exercises is 
largely to waste time and set up a cramming attitude. 

After a day or two of further assimilation, or perhaps longer, 
a similar test is given. The results are disclosed in Table X. 

The class as a whole has evidently mastered. The teacher 


TABLE X 


ASSIMILATION Test Resvutts IT 





VI 





VII | VIII} [x 





Le Es eS ee ee 
Pap aah ae 6 a ie 
ed be et bay es cre oe JE 
CDR oats bo ee ak (ee 
11 Se 1 Sa let oe 
RS oy oe ek Bad 
jo i-1. eX eet 
Poli git to 4a Iota 
ee ie xe Tt 
la Dah tat te Seer ae 
ae Ses ee ee 





has still some doubt concerning Pupils 5 and 6, but he notes that 
both had revealed substantial progress on the previous test, his 
rapport testing had given him considerable confidence in their 
learning, and he observes that both failed on the same question. 
A brief individual conference reveals the fact that both had 
failed to catch the import of this question, and that the pupils 
have, in fact, a clear understanding. Pupils 9 and 11 are evi- 
dently clear problem cases, and they are set aside for remedial 
study and teaching. Except for them, the teacher has good 
ground for judging that assimilation is complete. 

Now the unit test might quite as validly have been con- 
ducted by extended individual oral cross-examination. The ob- 


298 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


jections are purely practical, in that the process would require 
too much time if it were thoroughly done and in that it would be 
difficult for most teachers, without training in the art of cross- 
examination, to frame oral questions as skilfully as is possible in 
the case of the written test. 

The inclination of some teachers who are new to mastery 
teaching, and in whom the preconceptions of the passing grade 
are still strong, is to select arbitrarily a passing score, let us say 
ro or 1r when the full score is 12, and adjudge mastery for all 
pupils who attain such a passing score. The effect has all the bad 
implications which attach to the passing grade elsewhere and 
which we have discussed in chapter v. A full score on the unit 
test is good presumptive evidence of mastery, better in propor- 
tion as the test is well devised. At any rate, it is the best evidence 
we can secure. But a lower score, taken in connection with a 
careful consideration of the test itself and viewed in the light of 
other evidence, may be as good evidence as a full score, as for 
instance when a pupil reacts correctly to the greater part of the 
questions with none wrong. In general, if a pupil fails on only 
one question, there is good ground for further inquiry. If the 
test results show numerous “wrongs” on the same question and 
the teacher detects wherein the question was a misfire, the cor- 
responding scores can be eliminated and the results considered 
apart from those of the faulty question. Hence it is always well 
to have a list of test questions sufficiently long to make it possi- 
ble to eliminate one or more and still keep a good test. Judg- 
ment is in the light of all the evidence, only the teacher must be 
faithful to the evidence. It will not do to conclude, in the face of 
very inconclusive evidence from the test, “Oh, well, I just know 
that A, B, and C understand, so we will pass on.” 

A test of this sort will yield a great deal of negative evidence, 
that is, no evidence that the pupil has mastered, as well as posi- 
tive evidence that he has not mastered. Hence, it may often 
happen that the pupil is turned back for further assimilation 
when in fact he has mastered. As in the somewhat similar 





ASSIMILATION 299 


case of re-presentation, we cannot be too sure of mastery. In 
the long run these pupils profit. The chief consideration which 
needs to be borne in mind is the possibility that emotional 
problems in the form of resentment will thus be set up in them. 
If, however, the notion of educational rivalry and appraisal by 
rank-in-class has been pretty well stamped out, this danger will 
be minimized. 

The formulation of good unit test questions is something of 
an art. While one who has made them would scarcely say that 
their maker must wait on inspiration, it is true that they cannot 
be written out of hand. Perhaps the most convenient procedure 
is to keep a file of possible test questions on each unit and to add 
to the file as new suggestions present themselves. Questions may 
then be chosen from the file and grouped into tests as class needs 
dictate. Those which have proved effective may be preserved for 
future use and the defective ones rejected. 

Assimilation testing, apart from its primary use to the teach- 
er, is a very serviceable stimulus to the pupil. It not only tends 
to convince him that he does not yet understand, but it gives him 
a means of checking up on his failure and in the end an experi- 
ence of what mastery is. 

Testing is a part of the teaching process. Just as no system 
of technique and no method will take the place of the teacher’s 
insight, acumen, diligence, and fidelity to professional duty, in 
exploration, presentation, and the supervision of study, so will 
effective testing depend upon the same qualities. 


CHAPTER XVII 
ORGANIZATION AND RECITATION 


T is during the period of assimilation that the greatest scat- 
if tering of pupils in progress toward mastery takes place. 

The class is brought together for organization. During the 
assimilation period without corrective teaching, if we could 
measure accurately and precisely differences in progress, the 
class would probably be found to distribute itself much in ac- 
cordance with the normal distribution surface, for a multitude 
of chance factors are at work in determining the rate at which 
learning takes place. No such precise measurement is, however, 
available, and it would be of little service if it could be found. 
What is actually found toward the end of assimilation, in a 
school which has become accustomed to mastery teaching and 
fairly successful in its application, is a situation somewhat like 
the following. 

A comparatively small group of pupils, but one which be- 
comes constantly larger, has been released for some time for 
work on extra voluntary projects or similar enterprises. The 
length of such release varies a great deal, the progress made on 
the several projects also varies, and the number of such projects 
accomplished during the course varies. Generally speaking, 
most projects which are really worth while are worked upon 
over the release periods of several units and in the pupil’s un- 
assigned time as well. 


The bulk of the class varies but little in its progress during | 


assimilation. The teacher is somewhat more confident of mas- 
tery in some than in others, some have gone back for restudy 
more than have others, but in general they arrive at the end of 
assimilation at about the same time. By carefully testing the 
rate of progress without corrective teaching, Beauchamp found 


300 


| 
: 
| 





ORGANIZATION AND RECITATION 301 


that pupils in this group would keep nearly together over a pe- 
riod of several weeks. A given pupil would forge ahead for a 
few days and then give place to another. If corrective teaching 
had been done, some of the relatively slow workers would have 
been synchronized with the relatively rapid workers and the 
spread within the group contracted. The corrective work on the 
two girls in sustained application reported in chapter ix is a case 
in point. 

A third group is composed of the problem cases. The cor- 
rective cases have perhaps had considerable teaching out of 
class, and the remedial cases have been assigned to other sec- 
tions or remedial classes. In either case, most slow or problem- 
case pupils who are allowed to take the organization at all reach 
that point with the second of the three groups. 

The question will doubtless suggest itself, Why not let each 
pupil take the organization as he comes to it and then either 
release him from recitation or let him recite individually? There 
are several good reasons for the contrary course. 

Such a procedure simply results in a breakneck race through 
the school in which performance is exalted to the place of educa- 
tion. The notion of school work as being simply a series of tasks 
to be performed and belief in the brilliant student as the one who 
accomplishes such tasks most rapidly are both raised to the pin- 
nacle of educational absurdity. Such pupils arrive at the grad- 
uation point possessed of little but skill in accomplishing schoo! 
work, infant prodigies who are promoted to higher institutions 
without the proper products of normal educational growth. 
Therein, they come in contact with people who belong to an en- 
_ tirely different level of social maturity, and the result is apt to 
_ bean unhappy one. It may be disastrous in the extreme. No op- 
portunity is afforded them for discovering and developing gen- 
uine interests and solid self-dependence. An individual who 
might have become a leader of genuine and useful devotion to an 
intellectual pursuit becomes merely an arrogant and conceited 


302 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


exhibitionist in a world which ever accords a singular admira- 
tion to mere brilliancy. 

Per contra, such pupils are now and then released from a 
unit or from a course when the evidence points to the principle 
that they have in fact acquired the adaptation which the unit 
or the course implies, but they are released in order that they 
may devote themselves to other studies upon which their time 
can more profitably be spent. Such other studies are not neces- 
sarily accumulated as credits for earlier graduation, although 
even so the evidence touching the individual may be such that 
early graduation is seen to be the best thing for him. 

The recitation is an eminently essential member of the 
learning and teaching cycle, and one of the essential features of 
recitation is its social character. It is worthless without an au- 
dience, and the class group is the appropriate audience. Fur- 
thermore, if the learning process as applied to the unit has been 
successful in the best sense, the recitation will disclose many 
different points of view touching the bearing and significance of 
the unit, all of them correct and all of them helpful. The rapid 
learner not only should contribute his point of view, which is 
likely to be valuable because of his extended study, but he 
should come into an attitude in which he can learn from others 
who are less brilliant but who have nevertheless somewhat to 
contribute. Organization is essential to recitation. The pupil 
who has been pursuing his own interests for a week, or perhaps 
two or three weeks, is inevitably more or less out of touch with 
the sequences of thought contained in his earlier study. Hence, 
it is helpful to him to come back into the main stream of the unit 
before the recitation period. Accordingly, organization is better 
attached to recitation than to assimilation. 


ORGANIZATION 

When the teacher is convinced that assimilation has taken 
place in the class as a whole, organization is announced. For this 
purpose the class assembles without books, notes, charts, or any 





ORGANIZATION AND RECITATION 303 


other helps. Their problem is now to gather up the argument of 
the unit in outline form, with the essential supporting facts. 
Once more, the organization is focused upon the central under- 
standing and not upon the assimilative material. Hence in form 
it is the outline of a coherent and logical argument and not mere- 
ly an exhibit of facts. 

The outline may take the form of a syllabus with the main 
headings which carry the argument, the subordinate headings, 
and the appropriate subheadings; or it may be an outline in the 
systematic form of brief topic sentences. In either case, the class 
must be taught how to make the outline, especially in a school in 
which such teaching is new. Once the pupils have caught the 
idea, however, they will organize very passably well and im- 
prove as time goes on. 

The notion of organization can be developed in the early 
grades, certainly the fourth. The essential difference between 
the organizations of the young children and those of high-school 
pupils seems to be found in the principle that the young chil- 
dren’s organization contains only the main heads of the argu- 
ment while that of older pupils develops the subheads. Pupils 
in the senior high school will often produce very lengthy syl- 
labi running to several pages of paper. Indeed, there comes a 
time when the older pupil needs to be trained out of a tendency 
to prolixity. 

In starting the younger children to organizing, the chief de- 
pendence can be placed upon leading questions. Instruction is 
somewhat after the following fashion. 

“We have been studying about for a long time, and 
now we want to bring the main points that we have come to un- 
derstand together in a framework. 

‘You sometimes see in the first part of a book what is called 
a table of contents. Here is an illustration [exhibits]. We are 
going to make tables of contents for what we have studied. 

“Now, at first [am going to ask some questions, the answers 





304 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


to which you all know, and the answers will be the main heads 
of our organization.” 

After a time the questions are omitted, and the training in 
organization proceeds in this way: 

“What is the first big point we have learned? Why, it is this, 
is it not [writes]? 

‘‘And the second is this [ writes],” and so on. 

In the fifth or sixth grade, the children should begin to make 
their own organizations. Of course, the early organizations will 
be very far from perfect. Irrelevant heads will be brought in, 
and some of the children will make no serious effort to organize. 

On each organization, the process of training is much like 
that used in intensive reading. Several of the papers are taken 
up and discussed. This point has nothing to do with the matter; 
this one has. This paper is a good organization, because as you 
read the points there comes into mind the meat of the argument. 
Every point that John has made has a definite bearing, while 
this and this point on James’s paper have nothing to do with the 
story. There will be some children who do nothing at all, and it 
is by no means easy to distinguish between those who have failed 
to catch the notion and those who have simply made no effort. 
In general, the latter will be in the majority. These people are 
simply told that they will keep on trying, after school if need be, 
until they produce something which is acceptable, and at least 
an evidence of effort. After this period of reteaching, the papers 
are turned back for perhaps a single second attempt. 

Now there is no mastery involved in organization. It is a 
matter of performance and growth, and from unit to unit only 
what is judged to be the pupil’s best effort is accepted. As the 
pupil progresses into the. junior high school, the process of defi- 
nite instruction is minimized and the pupil is left to organize the 
unit in his own way, only the inadequate papers and those which 
the teacher thinks the pupil is capable of improving being turned 
back for further effort. 


ORGANIZATION AND RECITATION 305 


Needless to say, uniformity in organization is neither neces- 
sary nor desirable. Individual pupils will see the argument in 
somewhat different lines, and this individuality is to be encour- 
aged rather than suppressed. 

Such is the organization in subjects of extensive content. In 
arithmetic and grammar and the mathematics of the high school 
taught as purely a logical subject, no organization of this sort is 
practicable or necessary. The class goes from assimilation di- 
rectly into recitation. When mathematics is taught as a content 
subject, however (see chapter xiii, p. 215), the same procedure 
is used which applies to physics or history. 

The organization is not primarily a unit test, but a part of 
the learning process. The element of performance is too large 
for reliability as clear evidence of understanding. None the less, 
it, like every other part of the pupil’s performance in learning, is 
full of revelations touching the organization of the course, the 
technique employed, and the pupil himself. We cannot use fail- 
ure in organization as evidence of non-mastery in opposition to 
the evidence of the assimilation tests, but we can draw conclu- 
sions touching the guidance of individual pupils and the conduct 
of subsequent units. 

The organization is as fundamental to the pupil’s training in 
English composition as is the recitation. The English Depart- 
ment in the University High School is clear that no single step 
in the school career has accomplished more in the direction of 
composition training than has the organization in the science- 
type subjects. The final step in the mastery of any understand- 
ing is taken when we ‘write ourselves clear-headed”’ about it. 
Then it is that previously unnoted haziness makes itself baldly 
evident, and we become conscious that the understanding is our 
own and not merely lip-service to another. The first step in gain- 
ing such intellectual clarity is the logical arrangement of the 
ideas which constitute our understanding. 


306 © THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


RECITATION 

The organization requires perhaps two class periods, seldom 
more. When the teacher has become satisfied with performance 
at that stage, the class meets for two or three days for recitation. 

The recitation is to all intents and purposes the reverse of 
presentation. In the latter, the teacher presents the unit to the 
class; in the former, pupils who have mastered the unit pre- 
sent it, the class and teacher sitting as an audience. It bears no 
likeness to the daily recitation. In the daily recitation on the 
prepared lesson, the pupil has at the best only a meager account 
which he has culled out of the book. In most cases he has only 
a scrappy collection of details his control of which is uncertain, 
and his delivery of which is helped out and bolstered up by the 
teacher’s leading questions. In the mastery recitation, the pupil 
has something of a coherent nature to present, he knows what he 
is talking about, and at the best he is quite capable of delivering 
an interesting lecture running to thirty minutes or more. At the 
worst, he can at least stand on his feet and say something which 
is pertinent to the learning product mastered. The daily recita- 
tion is primarily a test; the mastery recitation is primarily a 
part of the learning process. 

At the end of organization, the teacher states that the 
next two or three days will be taken for recitation. He an- 
nounces that Mary, Clara, Mabel, Richard, and Donald will 
deliver the “floor talks” on this unit. Perhaps he can include 
eight or ten pupils instead of five. Before the next class meeting, 


each of the pupils named arranges his recitation, decides what © 


line he will take, and perhaps prepares notes for assistance on 
the floor. If it is a science class, he may spend some time in the 
classroom arranging apparatus which he wishes to use. If the 
recitation is to be in social science, he places upon the board the 
data to which he expects to refer. 

When the class assembles for recitation, the teacher seats 
himself among the pupils and the pupils who recite take suc- 
cessively the teacher’s position. In other words, an audience sit- 


ORGANIZATION AND RECITATION 307 


uation is created. The pupil who has the floor proceeds much as 
the teacher proceeds in presentation. He uses the blackboard 
when he needs to, uses demonstration apparatus if that will help 
to make his points clearer. He holds his audience because he is 
conscious of endeavoring to convince them that his view of the 
matter is a sound one or of trying to interest them in his presen- 
tation. Interruption, either by the teacher or by a member of 
the class, is viewed as discourtesy, and it is not allowed, unless 
the pupil himself has said that he will be glad to be interrupted 
for questions. 

At the close of the pupil’s recitation, there is apt to be a pe- 
riod of questions and discussion and contributions in which mem- 
bers of the class will take part. This period should be kept per- 
fectly natural and untrammeled by the teacher, except as far as 
it may be necessary to keep order and due courtesy and to pre- 
vent rambling. Especially should the teacher avoid that set 
order in which the pupils are asked to “criticize.” Such com- 
ment as may be called for touching the improvement of the reci- 
tation technique should be made definitely, clearly, and con- 
vincingly by the teacher. Perhaps there will be time enough in 
the ordinary high-school class period for two or three such reci- 
tations. In the elementary school they will be shorter and there 
will be time for more of them, even in the short elementary- 
school period. 

The floor talk thus described is of course recitation at the 
best. It is not ideal, if by ‘‘ideal” is meant the unattainable. The 
author has heard many recitations of which the foregoing is an 
inadequate rather than an overdrawn description. Both in the 
laboratory schools and elsewhere, he has not infrequently sat 
through a pupil recitation, the interest and charm of which 
made him forgetful of his primary purpose of supervision and 
critical observation. Such are of course the exception, but the 
ratio which they bear to very poor recitations constantly im- 
proves under skilful and faithful teaching. 

The recitation, like the organization, is performance and 


308 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


not mastery. It is not a time for grading and evaluating pupil 
achievement. A pupil who presents a superior recitation thereby 
evinces no evidence of mastery of the unit, which is necessarily 
better evidence than that shown by the pupil who is semi-artic- 
ulate. The mastery evidence is settled in the assimilation test, 
so far as the individual pupil and the present unit are concerned. 
The pupil who produces a superior recitation shows that in one 
way at least he can make a better use of mastery than his less 
capable classmate, and that is a useful thing to know as a part of 
his case history. Learning is applied to mastery of the unit and 
not to proficiency in recitation. Nevertheless, steady perform- 
ance improvement in recitation is desirable for two reasons. 

In the first place, superior performance in the recitation pe- 
riod undoubtedly makes for clarification of the learning 
achieved. In that sense it is a sort of supplementary study tool. 

In the second place, ability to stand before an audience, 
think on one’s feet, and speak convincingly is in itself an emi- 
nently desirable learning product. Continuous training in the 
natural situations created by the recitation period over a long 
series of units and succession of courses is bound to be much 
more fundamental and effective, other things being equal, than 
practice in the artificial situations available in a brief course in 
public speaking. 

With the purpose and function of the recitation period al- 
ready in mind, the pupil will himself formulate an effective proc- 
ess of training. The following suggestions based upon experience 
are, however, offered. 

In the first place, if the natural voiubility of children in the 
primary period is not suppressed, beyond what is necessary for 
the development of the primary social adaptations, one great as- 
set is secured from the beginning. The ancient precept which 
holds that children should be seen and not heard is undoubtedly 
largely responsible for the development of a body of inhibitions 
which produces the inarticulateness which is so typical of chil- 
dren in schoolroom situations. The child who is extremely artic- 


ORGANIZATION AND RECITATION 309 


ulate on the playground becomes dumb in the artificial and need- 
less restraint of the classroom. 

In his oral recitation the pupil should not constantly be 
made conscious of the manner of his speech. Like all the rest of 
us, if he has constantly in mind how he is expected to speak, he 
will say little. If the teacher sets a good model in presentation, 
from time to time talks to the class before the recitation period, 
showing them how the floor talks can be improved, and then ex- 
ercises patience, the pupils will all tend to improve from year to 
year. In the later years of the senior high school, it is easy to 
note a marked contrast between pupils who have had practice in 
oral recitation throughout their high-school careers and those 
who have not had such practice. 

The recitation critically observed is a good index of the char- 
acter of the long period of study upon the unit, not a mastery 
test but a revelation of the coloring of the pupil’s adaptation. 
If study has been largely formalistic, without interest or en- 
thusiasm or inward conviction and enlightenment, then the pu- 
pils may react properly to the assimilation tests and yet reveal 
a colorless and meager recitation. Such a disclosure is not a rea- 
son for reteaching the unit, but it is an admonition to modify 
and enthuse the conduct.of the next and succeeding units. 

Sometimes it is worth while to try a series of floor talks over 
again in the following manner. 

A certain recitation observed by the writer was passably 
good, but neither teacher nor class was satisfied. Toward the 
end of the period the teacher interrupted the class and some- 
thing like the following took place: | 

“T don’t think any of us are satisfied. It seems to me that 
these people can talk much better than this. What they have 
said to us is far from convincing. 

“They are too much concerned with how they appear when 
they stand up before the class and how they are going to speak. 
The result is that they have little to say and that is confused and 
rambling. It sounds like an old-fashioned daily recitation. 


310 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


‘“‘Now prepare yourself this way: 

“Have definitely in mind that your job is to convince the 
class that such and such is the way to look at this unit. You have 
about four or five points which you wish to make. When you 
stand up before the class, have those points definitely in mind. 
What you are going to say will come to you all right and how 
you are going to Say it. 

“Talk to the class and hold the class attention. If Fred over 
there doesn’t seem interested, talk directly at him for a minute 
and you will see what happens. Today, you all looked at me as if 
you were trying to satisfy me. I am satisfied already that you 
know the unit. I want you to get your own message across to 
the class. You had a good point, Mary, when you called atten- 
tion to . That was your own, but you talked to me as if 
you weren’t quite sure and were wondering what I would say 
about it. Never mind me, talk to the class. Especially talk to 
James and Arthur, who are rather skeptical. Let’s try it again 
tomorrow.” 

The following day, the writer again visited the class and 
heard a beautifully complete series of talks addressed to an in- 
terested class, a useful and effective piece of public speaking ap- 
plied to the argument of a unit in chemistry. 

The recitation, like all the preceding steps, should be fo- 
cused upon the unit as a piece of understanding and not upon 
the content of the assimilative material. Here, as elsewhere, 
when the unit is in the foreground of consciousness, the needful 
bits of content drop into place almost automatically. Very 
often, however, the pupil will offer a floor talk which is merely a 
resumé of what he can remember of the assimilative material. 
Instead of using selections from the latter to fortify and defend 
his argument, he merely recounts items without reference to 
argument. Of course this is merely a good daily recitation type 
of talk. Patient instruction, after the nature of that used in the 
illustration, will soon produce improvement. We encounter 
many students in college, not to say in high school, who have 





a, i 


eo ., ee ee ee 


ee 


age eg ee es 


ee EE il led 


4 


ORGANIZATION AND RECITATION 311 


never in their lives had a glimpse of what the exposition in school 
of a piece of understanding which is their own property really 
means. The organization and recitation constitute the supreme 
opportunity for the communication of such a vision. 

It would obviously be desirable to give every pupil an op- 
portunity for a floor talk on every unit. This is impracticable; 
first, because there is not time enough; and, second, because the 
class would often become very much bored. On the last point, 
however, good recitations are not in fact wearisome. ‘The writer 
has seen a class in physics listen attentively to sixteen in suc- 
cession running over two days of double periods with an inter- 
mission of ten minutes between the two halves of the period on 
each day. Something may be said in favor of the need of train- 
ing young Americans into habits of prolonged attention in the 
listening attitude and out of the self-indulgence which requires 
mental titillation from moment to moment. Nevertheless, from 
five to perhaps eight floor talks on a unit are usually all that is 
practicable in the senior high school. In subjects in which the 
content is less extensive, and in the elementary school and junior 
high school as we have seen, more can be had. To meet the need 
in part, the pupils present their floor talks in rotation on the suc- 
cessive units, while those who are not assigned floor talks present 
written papers on the unit. 

It is of course desirable that the floor talks should deal with 
the unit as a whole, as did the presentation, but this is not al- 
ways practicable. There are two serviceable variations. 

In the first place, many units can be treated in their applica- 
tions in such a manner that each application is in effect an expo- 
sition of the unit. The long physics recitation noted above, was 
handled in the following manner: 

The unit was “Lenses.” There was available a cycle of ap- 


_ plications: the microscope, the telescope, the camera, the stere- 


opticon, and the human eye. Each pupil chose the application 
which he preferred and developed from it the theory of lenses. 
A large model of the eye was available, a camera and a stere- 


312 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


opticon, and these the pupils used. The other two applications 
were demonstrated from board sketches made as the pupils 
talked. 

In other units, of which “The Westward Movement” in his- 
tory is a good illustration, both the unit and its major aspects 
are used for oral recitation, but in this case the unit should ap- 
pear in each of the major aspects. 

The written paper serves the purposes of the reaction mem- 
ber of the learning cycle as well as does the oral recitation— 
perhaps better—but it gives a different kind of training. At the 
beginning of the recitation period, the class knows who are se- 
lected for floor talks on the unit, and the others are free to begin 
their written papers, preferably out of class time. 

Now much depends upon the pupil’s attitude toward and his 
conception of the written paper. If he looks upon it simply as 
a task to be performed with the minimum of effort which will 
satisfy the teacher, then the writing will serve no useful educa- 
tional purpose. Hence, the pupils should be indoctrinated with 
the notion that they are writing papers designed to enlighten and 
convince others. The devices which the teacher uses for the es- 
tablishment of this attitude are of course many, and they will 
depend for their effectiveness upon the teacher’s clear percep- 
tion of the purpose which the paper is intended to serve and 
upon his ingenuity and resourcefulness. In the elementary 
school, and often upward into the college, a typical device is to 
have the pupils throw the paper into the form of a letter. An- 


other device useful in the senior high school and college, and — 


often earlier, is to say to certain pupils, “I wish you to write this 
paper as an article for a technical magazine or as a chapter in a 
book.” 

The written paper should be utilized as an opportunity for 
English composition. Instead of being allowed to dash off a pa- 
per in the interval between other appointments, the pupils 
should be convinced that the preparation of a paper is entitled 


to a great deal of laborious effort. It is well, first, to write the — 


) 
| 
i 


ORGANIZATION AND RECITATION 313 


paper out rapidly with an eye in the main to organization. Then 
the work is gone over carefully for treatment. This point is elab- 
orated somewhat. That passage is repetitious of something 
which has been said before and may be eliminated. The reader 
will not understand this paragraph; it must be recast. Next, the 
whole paper is examined critically for use of words. Here is a 
word which does not mean what it is intended to mean. Here is 
a personal pronoun which does not agree with its antecedent. 
Here are inconsistent uses of tense. The paper is then copied 
and finally proofed for bad spelling, bad punctuation, and the 
like. The pupil should be taught to keep a simple and helpful 
manual of English usage at hand for his own guidance. 

Every paper which shows evidence of this kind of effort 
should be accepted, however imperfect it may be, except upon 
one issue. The pupil must apply the common usage which he has 
learned. If the paper appears in slovenly handwriting when the 
record shows that the pupil is capable of writing a legible hand, 
if he repeatedly misspells “separate” and “occasion” and 
“their,” and if he runs sentences together or makes lavish use 
of an introductory “and,” then the paper should invariably be 
turned back with the appropriate comment. 

On the other hand, every paper which shows evidence of 
hasty preparation, which is in effect simply in examination-pa- 
per form, should likewise be turned back with patient and sym- 
pathetic admonitions which convince the pupil that effortless 
papers will simply not be accepted and that the categorical im- 
perative is in full working order. 

This implies a great deal of paper work on the part of the 
teacher? Assuredly it does, and that is a vital part of the teach- 
ing process. It is not merely a question of training in English 
composition; it is also a question of the thorough teaching of 
physics or chemistry or economics or history. 

Size of class in science type.—Mastery teaching as applied 
to subjects in the science type presumes small classes? It does, 


314 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


indeed. The size of classes at the level of the university proper, 
when students have ceased to require constant and intimate con- 
tact with the teacher, when they have learned how to study and 
have definitely matured plans for study, is limited only by the 
size of lecture-rooms. But even in the higher ranges of univer- 
sity study, the number of students whom a single professor can 
guide in their research is limited by the number whom he can 
intimately know and follow. In the secondary period, however, 
the teacher must be able to know the individual at every step. 
In the science type especially, the exploration requires that the 
teacher shall be able to form a just impression of the intellectual 
background of every pupil. In presentation, he must be able to 
sense from the presentation test papers the extent to which ev- 
ery pupil has caught the central thought of the unit. In super- 
vised study, he must be able to come intimately in contact with 
the methods which each employs and the learning problems 
which each presents. In the written recitation, he must be able 
to read thoughtfully and critically the papers of perhaps three- 
fourths of the class on every unit, and many of them two or 
three times. 

And this is not all. The teacher must meet several classes 
each day, and that means several groups of individuals. There 
must not be so many that the teacher cannot know well each in- 
dividual who is under his instruction for the semester. Further- 
more, something must be said of the size of the school itself. 
The teacher meets his classes of individuals for a semester or a 
year. If he meets the same pupils in several other courses during 
their years in school, and gets to know them well in their extra- 
curricular activities in the intervals between courses, his poten- 
tial effect upon them.is immeasurably increased. When the 
school is so large that a given teacher is obliged to remark in fac- 
ulty meeting, “I think I had that boy in a course during his first 
year,” the possible educational effect of the school upon the pu- 
pil is too obvious to require comment. 





ORGANIZATION AND RECITATION 315 


The conditions imposed .by the inherent nature of the edu- 
cative process itself make the process expensive, but efficient 
schooling which leads to actual educational products is immeas- 
urably less expensive than inefficient schooling. 

What, then, is the limit of class size imposed by the require- 
ments of the science type? If precise answer is required, we 
have none. Obviously, some teachers can effectively teach more 
than others, and the same teacher can effectively handle a larger 
number in one course in the science type than is possible in an- 
other. In general, we find empirically that classes up to thirty 
can be managed without serious difficulty. We have noted no 
serious difficulty when the teacher meets ninety to one hun- 
dred different pupils daily in a school of five hundred. We think 
the school might be expanded 50 per cent on a five-year basis 
and still avoid submerging the individual under a system of tests 
and measurements without intimate personal contact. On the 
basis of five hundred pupils, it is to be noted that not all the 
teachers in science-type subjects become acquainted with all the 
children in school, but most of the teachers do become ac- 
quainted with most of the children. On the other hand, we have 
tried experimentally to have elementary teachers meet two hun- 
dred children daily in courses within the same year, and we 
know as a result that it cannot be done if the teacher is to know 
the pupil well enough to guide his educational growth. Per con- 
tra, it should be said that a school which handles its program on 
_ a daily-lesson basis, with appraisal of pupil progress by teach- 
_ er’s estimates based upon performance and not upon learning, 
_ should be able to handle one size of class and of school about as 
_ well as another. 
| We have devoted a great deal of space to the science type, 
more than will fall to the lot of any other, and the fact has a 
certain significance. In the first place, many of the principles 
_ set forth will find a place in succeeding types. But more than 
_ that, the subject matter which falls under this type constitutes 


aa ce 


316 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


the content of the greater part of that adjustment of the individ- 
ual to environment which is education. If we include the prac- 
tical arts as an offshoot and corollary of the science type, there 
is found in the broad field thus covered all the adaptations which 
constitute the stock of the individual’s intelligent and reasoned 
attitudes toward his physical, biological, and social world. He 
has still to acquire those adaptations which are not reasoned but 
felt, and to this field we turn in our discussion of the apprecia- 


tion type. 


; 
A 





CHAPTER XVIII 
THE APPRECIATION TYPE 


our long consideration of the learning products which we 
| Es as essentially intelligent attitudes or reasoned con- 
victions, we have been dealing with a field which is in large 
measure the outcome of a very recent period in human evolu- 
tion. Prior to the rise of modern science, this area was not open 
to educational use, simply because neither a scientific method of 
thinking nor the disclosures thereof had yet appeared. In sharp 
contrast, we now turn to a field of adjustments which have been 
slowly worked out in the long racial quest for happiness and 
peace of soul. Man has sought the good, the beautiful, and the 
true and in large measure he has found them and is still finding 
them. He has found them in nature, and in that which he con- 
ceives to be above nature; and he has handed them down to 
his posterity in music, in the pictorial and plastic arts, in litera- 
_ ture, and in that code of personal obligations which he calls 
“honor and religion.” Herein we find the second of the funda- 
mental types of adjustment to his present world and to that ideal 
world which man forever seeks which education leads the child 
of the race to make. In adaptations which belong to the science 
type the pupil reaches his learning product through reflective 
thinking. The adaptations which belong to the appreciation 
type he reaches by simple recognition of worth. 


THE OBJECTIVE 


The learning product can perhaps best be characterized as 
“favorable attitude,” usually accompanied by emotional color- 
ing. We are not primarily concerned here with the explanations 
which philosophy may assign to the value which is appreciated. 
These are the problems of the methodologist and of the curricu- 


317 


318 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


lum-maker. Teaching is concerned only with the fact that there 
are certain values which it must lead the pupil to accept and 
adopt into his personality. Nor does teaching attempt to explain 
those values to the pupil, at least in the present connection. To 
do so is to get back into the science type and to generate a differ- 
ent product from that which we are now seeking. 

Our party is climbing a wonderful mountain peak, and, as 
we pass above the timber line, the vision bursts upon us in all its 
majestic grandeur. We gaze upon the scene in rapture and we 
find a satisfaction whichis a present joy and afterward an ever 
happy memory. The geologist in the party explains how the 
mountain came to be and thus an added bit of our environment 
comes to be understood, but his explanation alters in no way the 
beauty which is there. The psychologist explains how we come 
to feel the beauty, and again we are intellectually interested, but 
the beauty itself is neither enhanced nor explained away. One of — 
the party sees nothing but a “‘pile of rocks,” and remarks that he © 
hopes we are near the summit and the expected food supply. — 
Nothing that we can say induces in him an aesthetic thrill, nor — 
do the explanations of our scientific friends. We recognize the | 
graundeur and he does not. That is all there is to it. Perhaps if . 
we were all elsewhere, in the presence of some other beauty, the — 
relations would be reversed. There are small boys and girls in © 
the party, and they go scampering up the mountain, rejoicing in : 
the stimulus which comes from exercise in the open and the 
spirit of adventure and from the eager competition as to who — 
shall reach the top first. As the years go by and the children be- ; 
come youths, more often does the beauty call them and less the ; 
appeal of adventure. Now let some overanxious elder stop the — 
children and demand that they shall pause to admire the scene; _ 
not only do they decline to admire, but an inhibition is set up 
which stops natural development along that line. Years after-— 
ward, one of them will report, “I just hate climbing mountains;. — 
father always stops me and makes me admire the scene.” In this 










THE APPRECIATION TYPE 310 


instance is contained pretty much the whole theory and practice 
of the appreciation type. 

The teaching objective is always a favorable attitude toward 
particular values. Such attitudes cannot be forced; the teacher 
cannot achieve his conquests by frontal attack. The ultimate 
educational objective is an established preference for right val- 
ues, which in common parlance we call “‘taste” or ‘‘good breed- 
ing” or “culture.” It is perhaps well to recall, for purposes of 
comparison, the similar ultimate objective in the science type, 
which we have called “intellectual self-dependence,” the inclina- 
tion and ability to study without the presence of the teacher, to 
apply to experiences which are found in a complex environment 
rational methods of interpretation. Like all other educational 
products, the objective, both the present objective and the ulti- 
mate objective, is a transformation in the individual who is the 
subject of education. It is perhaps worth while to state the ob- 
jective in terms of the tests which may in general appropriately 
be applied. 

Literature is the schoo! subject most commonly representa- 
tive of the appreciation type. The objective is plainly a taste 
for good reading, an inclination to devote one’s leisure in part to 
that which has abiding value. Now two pupils have taken the 
same literature courses in high school and college. Both have 
about equally satisfied a succession of teachers with their class- 
room performance. They can answer equally weil any set of 
questions which may be asked relative to the content of courses 
and the judgment of critics touching literary values. One of 
them makes us aware of his genuine satisfaction in the best of 
current literature and his occasional periods of interest in the 
classics of some portion of the past. The other reads only the 
Sunday newspaper and the current best seller which purveys 
thrills without regard to the realities of life. Again, a certain 
parent is concerned with the progress of her daughter at school. 
She desires that the latter shall do well in her literature classes. 
In consultation with the teacher, the mother discloses the fact 


320 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


that she watches over the pupil’s home reading and reads with 
her daughter. “But,” inquires the teacher, “what do you read 
yourself when your daughter is not with your” “Oh, after she 
has gone to bed, I read books which I should be ashamed to have 
her see.” Now, of these three people, the first pupil had at- 
tained a real product in appreciation. The second pupil had at- 
tained no product at all. The mother had attained only a sense 
of values as symbolic of cultural status. Far from having made 
some adjustment to the capital of values handed down to her by 
her race, she had attained a perverted relation to the world of 
reality which made her what is commonly called a “hypocrite.” 

And so we might go on and illustrate from the fields of mu- 
sic, the pictorial and plastic arts, and right conduct. We should 
always find this threefold classification: the people who mani- 
fest the attainment of the genuine adaptation through their un- 
constrained behavior; those who manifest no adaptation at all; 
and those who exhibit only the pretense of an adaptation which 
they have not but wish they had. 

When we reflect that the most immediate practical service 
which education has to render is the adjustment of individuals 
to life in a self-governing society, the tests of adaptation in the 
field of moral behavior come to be of peculiar significance. As 
long as conduct is controlled by mere habituation to precepts 
set up by parental dictum or to the prescriptions enumerated in 
the statutes or to the compulsion of public opinion, we have no 
educational product, nor indeed have we a free man, fit to play 
his part in a self-governing society. We have, instead thereof, 
mere regimentation. As soon as the ordinary artificial restraints 
and constraints break down, as they frequently do, the regi- 


mented individual lapses into the control of his primitive in- 


stincts. Debauchery and perhaps a “crime wave” ensues. Wise 
parents and teachers have long recognized the test of a genuine 
adaptation in a field of conduct when they raise the question, 
Can the youth be trusted to do right because he prefers to do 
right? 





THE APPRECIATION TYPE 321 


Can the notion of mastery be applied to learning in the ap- 
preciation type? It is as applicable here as elsewhere, but im- 
portant distinctions must be noted. In general, we may say that 
whenever the pupil has genuinely attained a favorable attitude 
toward any value in appreciation he has attained a mastery, but 
we cannot set up a series of such specific values to be mastered in 
a given course by all pupils. In all the other types of teaching 
we can do so, and our limitations are found only in our problem 
cases. Even these, in most cases, yield to skilful investigation 
and corrective or remedial teaching. In appreciation teaching, 
however, all pupils are to a greater or less extent problems, and, 
as we shall presently see, economical and effective development 
depends quite as much on the arrangement and content of the 
course of study as upon teaching procedure. If Pupil A fails to 
catch a certain value this year, he may adopt it next year or two 
years hence. Meantime, he will very likely achieve another 

which Pupil B does not achieve. 
| We cannot set up any particular series of units in an appre- 
ciation course and hold that the pupil’s education consists in 
mastering them, either in succession or as a whole. The essential 
objectives of the type neither require nor admit this conception 
of the content of education. The contrary is true of the science 
type. There, the mastery of certain units is essential to the un- 
derstanding of those aspects of the environment for which they 
stand. If the pupil fails to understand the germ theory of dis- 
ease, he achieves no intelligent attitude toward the nature of va- 
rious maladies which afflict humanity, and to that extent his 
behavior remains irrational behavior. Again, if he fails to learn 
to read a foreign language, he cannot read that language. We 
may be mistaken in the series of units which we select for a sci- 
ence course and another set may be better, but the units selected 
and organized have a vital relation to the pupil’s adjustment in 
that field. On the other hand, neither the appeal of a Shakes- 
pearean drama, nor of a story of Stevenson, nor of a Wagnerian 
opera, nor of the Sistine Madonna, is essential to the cultivation 


322 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


of literary or artistic tastes. They constitute valuable assimila- 
tive material out of which such tastes may arise, but none of 
them may appeal to any pupil in a given year nor to all pupils in 
a series of years. This does not imply that the high-school or 
college course, in literature for instance, may not be divided into 
convenient fields for purposes of cultivation, such as the drama, 
the novel, the essay, the short story, but it does imply that no 
one drama or novel or essay is in itself an objective. The peda- 
gogical fallacy of mistaking assimilative material for the learn- 
ing product is as applicable here as in the science type. 

Each teaching type seems to have its peculiar inhibitions. 
In the science type, the characteristic inhibition seems to be 
the memorizing attitude. In language arts and pure practice it 
is, in different senses, the focalizing of attention on isolated ele- 
ments. In the appreciation type, the inhibition par excellence 
arises when the teacher adopts the attitude, ‘Here is something 
you should like and you must like.”’ Who has not had the expe- 
rience? When the teacher adopts the attitude, ‘This book is in 
the course, and if you desire credit for the course, you must read 
it,’ the pupil may get the task done but he will rarely make the 
book serve its educative purpose. He sets up the inhibition in 
appreciation. If an educational institution sets up its program 
of study on this basis and expects to generate an educational 
effect, it deludes itself. You cannot say to the pupil, “You must 
admire this work by the end of next week,” and achieve your 
purpose. Rather, you adopt the course best calculated to insure 
that the pupil will detest rather than admire. 

Again, if a technique is organized which is appropriate to 
another type, the objectives appertaining to the latter may be 
secured but not the products in appreciation which are sought. 
The mistake most often made here is to use some form of sci- 
ence-type procedure in an appreciation course. A piece of lit- 
erature, for instance, is analyzed for the sake of disclosing the 
principles of literary craftsmanship which have been observed 
in its construction. Again, it is studied for its historical setting, 


THE APPRECIATION TYPE 323 


or for the biography of the author, or for the meaning of certain 
passages. In any of these instances, the study is a science-type 
procedure, and while we may secure an intelligent attitude to- 
ward the author and his time and his style, we do not secure an 
appreciation except by accident. This is not to assert that such 
studies as we have instanced have no place in the secondary 
school. Some of them are singularly useful in the assimilative 
period of a unit in history. Others are useful, in an opportunity 
course in writing, for older pupils who have developed an inter- 
est in and a taste for writing. To some extent, the skilful teacher 
in appreciation who has a due sense of proportion will utilize 
some such elements in developing the appeal of a piece of pic- 
torial art or music or literature in an appreciation course. In 
general, however, such studies belong in the post-secondary pe- 
riod, where they are utilized for training in literary criticism, 
for the accumulation of literary erudition, and perhaps for the 
building of the higher appreciations. 


THE APPRECIATION TYPE IN EDUCATION 


As we have already seen, the school subjects which belong 
to this type are especially moral conduct, literature, music, and 
the pictorial and plastic arts. In the cases of the last three, of 
course we have reference to the impressional aspect. As a mat- 
ter of expression, music is a language art and the other two are 
practical arts. To the objectives found in these fields may be 
added various others often found in connection with studies 
which belong also in other types. For instance, training in citi- 
zenship, as far as it implies civic obligation, connotes an objec- 
tive in appreciation. So far as it implies intelligent attitudes, 
specific courses in social science are called for. The scientific 
attitude of mind, which we certainly associate with the study of 
the sciences, is nevertheless a specific objective of the apprecia- 
tion type. A youth may study the sciences for years and acquire 
not only intelligent attitudes toward sundry aspects of the en- 
vironment but a mass of erudition as well, and yet fail to achieve 


324 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


the sense of value which the scientific attitude as such implies. 
Again, he may achieve the latter as a working precept in physics 
or chemistry and utterly fail to realize that it applies to political 
action or educational administration. The attitude is a general- 
ized ideal, and the student masters it as a product of apprecia- 
tion or not at all. And so the test is the nature of the learning 
product desired and not the accident of logical classification. 
Clearly, we have here what are perhaps our most fundamen- 
tal educational adjustments. In so far as civilization has pro- 
gressed at all in terms of human well-being, its advance has been 
in the line of the satisfactions which the race, in its long process 
of trial and error, has found to lead to other satisfactions and 
not to doubtful experiences. As long as man found his satisfac- 
tions solely in the gratification of his primitive animal instincts, 
he rose little if at all above his kindred animals. As soon as a 
group began to seek the ideal, it became to that extent a social 
group; it survived and bred an expanding society based on the 
pursuit of honor, or what it conceived to be honor, and of the 
satisfactions which differentiate man from the brute. Man be- 
gan to express the soul that was in him in primitive music and 
drama and graphic representation. He developed a code which 
governed his relations with his fellow-man, calculated on the 
whole to substitute justice for the caprice of the strong. He be- 
came curious about his relation to the universe and built up 
some sort of religion which would satisfy his yearnings after the 
eternal. So have arisen through the long ages the wisdom of 
mankind and man’s discrimination between right and wrong. 
Every child tends more or less to revert to the life of his remote 
ancestors. He inherits their physical organism through the germ 
plasm. He inherits the culture of the intervening generations 
and of his immediate ancestors, only as it is communicated to 
him by the family, the school, and other social institutions. 
Such appears to be the education of the individual in this 
field. As we educate individuals, we educate society, provided 
we can reach enough individuals. Systematic education of the 


‘ * 4! 
ali 


THE APPRECIATION TYPE 325 


masses in this field has a peculiar significance in the modern 
world. 

The progress of science during the modern period, and the 
acceleration of that progress during the past half-century or 
less, has brought about an immense amelioration of the purely 
physical conditions of life. Perhaps its most significant effect in 
the United States has been a sudden rise in the economic power 
of great masses of people whose forebears knew little of exis- 
tence beyond its story of daily toil and lifelong penury. Not for 
them labor-saving machinery, the comfortable home, the auto- 
mobile, the ready means of communication, the theater. But 
what are all these things for if not for the achievement of human 
satisfactions? The individual has found himself with a healthy 
body. He has avoided the misery of ill health in himself and 
family, but what shall he do with his good health? He earns 


more than enough to satisfy the pangs of hunger and to ward off 


the assaults of the elements. What shall he do with his surplus? 
There is only one answer: He seeks satisfactions and, apart 
from the specific education required, he follows the line of his 
primitive instincts. Food-seeking becomes gluttony. Sex im- 
pulses become debauchery. Native love for surpassing one’s fel- 
lows leads to a wild orgy of display. Posterity is robbed of its 
forest reserves in order to feed the printing press which titillates 
his untutored curiosity and discloses to him new fields of sen- 
sual gratification. Interesting and harmless animals are deprived 
of their outer integuments in order that his women may wear 
them in the summer time and gratify the primitive instinct for 
emulous adornment. The bowels of the earth are recklessly 
despoiled of their reserves of mineral wealth in order that our 
barbarian may whip into life once more a nervous system which 
has been jaded and blunted in its capacity to respond to per- 
petual and abnormal stimulation. It has been estimated by com- 
petent authority that approximately one-third of the earnings of 
Western society are expended on the pursuit of wasteful and 
luxurious living. And so it must be. The pursuit of happiness in 


326 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


the twentieth century along the lines of the primitive emotions 
can never lead to an equilibrium of the human satisfactions and 
to emotional health. The primitive instincts must be sublimated, 
and education of the masses in the field which belongs to the ap- 
preciation type of teaching is not only an appropriate method 
but the only method. 


FUNDAMENTALS OF OPERATIVE TECHNIQUE 

The scientific background for the practice of teaching in this 
type is meager but increasing. Perhaps our most illuminating 
material is to be found in the case studies of behavior problems 
which social workers of various interests have contributed and 
are contributing. Studies in the general field of mental hygiene, 
although they of course deal in the main with the pathology of 
behavior and personality, are nevertheless full of suggestions 
touching the treatment of the normal child. 

More conspicuously than is the case in the other types, our 
operative technique here must rest on the principle of what may 
be called “apperceptive unfolding.” True it is that no principle 
in the science type can be assimilated by the pupil unless there 
is a background of experience to which it can be related. Never- 
theless, as we have seen, given this apperceptive sequence, one 
can select and teach a unit in the science type. Not so in the 
appreciation type. Here, we are obliged to find in the pupil some 
liking which he already has and build our structure thereon. 
Perhaps the difference between the types is simply a difference 
in the extent and variety of the respective apperceptive masses 
in individual pupils which are likely to exist. Perhaps it is due 
to instinctive tendencies to develop this or that kind of person- 
ality. Whatever the explanation, the principle seems to be in- 
contestable: We can get some pupils to accept a given value in 
a given course and others we cannot. 

Our fundamental problem is, then, to build up in pupils 
from their earliest days in school a rich and varied experiential 


THE APPRECIATION TYPE 327 


background of values which are calculated to appeal to many 
different individuals. ) 

First in order of importance here is an abundance of literary 
reading material. Provided the children can be given the read- 
ing adaptation early in their school lives, before the age of eight 
if possible, and then put in contact with an abundance of good 
reading material, the author has found little difference between 
the child of the city slum, the child of the remote rural school, 
and the child of the cultivated family. There will be marked 
differences between individuals of the three classes but not be- 
tween the classes themselves. If children are taught to read, 
they will ordinarily read. If children do not get the reading 
adaptation or if they are long delayed in getting it, they cannot 
as easily be put in contact with good reading. They become 
rapidly less plastic. Their out-of-school experience is apt to 
make them less and less likely to respond to children’s literature, 
though they may still be interested in informational material. 
The same result will appear if, having acquired the reading 
adaptation, they get no contacts with literary reading material. 
As the child grows older in his school experience, it is of course 
essential that he shall never lack for material which is likely 
to appeal or which may appeal. The school’s reading-room and 
the reading tables of the schoolrooms become one of the school’s 
chief implements of education, second in importance only to 
the teacher. 

The pupil should hear an abundance of good music from his 
earliest school years. Happily, the availability of instruments 
for the rendering of the best music has made this possible in lit- 
erally every school. Nor is a regular “music period twice a 
week”’ sufficient. The victrola or similar instrument should be 
set to playing informally whenever there is a suitable opportu- 
nity—at recess times, for instance. 

He should attend school in a worthy and dignified example 
of architecture, not an expensive nor ornate building. Buildings 
which are beautiful in their simplicity are often the least expen- 


328 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


sive, and they are perhaps never ornate. The rooms and corri- 
dors of the building should contain many representations of the 
best examples of painting which appeal to children and young 
people. 

Most of all, the administration of the school and the teach- 
ing force should be well equipped to recognize and apply the 
principles which lead to the willing acceptance of those values 
in moral conduct which are ultimately built into the mature per- 
sonality. Many volumes have been written touching this general 
issue, and we shall return to the matter in later chapters. Suffice 
it here to emphasize its significance in the basal technique of the 
appreciation type. The literature of mental hygiene is full of 
instances in which the whole structure of the personality has 
been warped and the pupil’s later acceptance of moral values 
perverted by unhappy experiences at school, which the teacher 
or the school administration or both have allowed to pass un- 
corrected and to become parts of the apperceptive mass to which 
later conduct is assimilated. 

The second principle is the reality and, we might add, the 
idealism of the values taught. Does a book selected for class 
reading or to be placed on the shelves in the reading-room ex- 
hibit life as it is or as it should be, or does it draw a fantastic 
picture of a life which never was and never can be? Does the 
author make his people talk the language which such people 
would really talk, or does he make them talk the stilted phrases 
found only in books? Still worse, does the author exhibit a life 
which undoubtedly exists but which should not exist? The 
cheap juvenile is the type of the first kind of unreality. It ordi- 
narily panders to pathological day-dreaming to which we are all 
natively prone, just as the vendor of drugged cigarettes builds 
his traffic upon systematically perverted physiological cravings. 
The literary mudbath which panders to the animal in man under 
the pretense of realistic craftsmanship will illustrate our second 
kind of unreality. Such books never serve an educational pur- 
pose with children or young people. Truly, they often exhibit 


THE APPRECIATION TYPE 329 


social pathology to which the decent and constructive citizen 
should not close his eyes, but their subject matter is that of the 
university class in sociology or criminal law or abnormal psy- 
chology, and not literary material in the field of general educa- 
tion. 

Another foundation of operative technique may be de- 
scribed as the “specific influence of a valued personality.” While 
it is doubtless true in any type of teaching that a serious obstacle 
to the learning process itself is set up when the pupils for any 
reason do not respect the teacher, the effect is fatal in the appre- 
ciation type. 

The teacher who is alive with the message of a poem or of a 
piece of music can apparently hardly fail to communicate its ap- 
peal to a class of boys and girls in the secondary school, if the 
latter are at all receptive. The teacher knows his material, 
senses its meaning and the value of its meaning, and is therefore 
himself in possession of the true learning product which is to be 
taught. 

Such teachers are hard to find, but there are probably more of 
them than we think. The initial problem is for the administration, 
through its organization of courses and its development of an 
appropriate technique, to make it possible for potentially effec- 
tive teachers to operate. On the other hand, when a school finds 
it impossible to secure even potentially effective teachers in the 
appreciation type, it is far better not to attempt to offer courses 
in appreciation. The reader’s rejoinder may be, “But the col- 
leges require high-school units in literature and very likely such 
and such books.” The essence of the college requirement is the- 
oretically that its students shall come with some cultural back- 
ground in literature. It therefore sets up a requirement which 
it hopes will achieve the purpose but which, it should know, is 
illy calculated to do so. There are few colleges, however, which 
will fail to be content when they receive the reality, even though 
it is unaccompanied by its stereotyped symptoms in the form of 
units of ground covered and time spent. It is far from essential 


330 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


that all schools should exist for college preparation. Better that 
the school shall be sincere in what it has to offer, even though its 
students who are looking forward to college must go elsewhere 
for college preparation. Better far, in subjects which belong to 
the appreciation type, that the school shall avoid building up 
positive inhibitions through courses which must be placed in the 
hands of unqualified and unvalued teachers if they are offered at 
all. We often encounter the administrative position which holds 
that almost anybody will do for literature teaching. The con- 
trary is true; the appreciation courses, one and all, depend upon 
the personality and qualifications of the instructor more than do 
any others whatsoever. 

As we have seen, the building of a sound apperceptive mass 
from the earliest school years is of primary and fundamental 
importance but it is not enough. Many of the most valuable 
products can be secured only when the meaning and significance 
of specific pieces of aesthetic material are felt by the pupil. Even 
though the meaning is made to register, the pupil may still fail 
to value the meaning, but he is not likely to appreciate the work 
if the meaning does not register. Macbeth is being presented to 
a class in the senior high school. There is little or nothing in the 
experience of most of the pupils which causes the meaning of the 
tragedy to register. To them it is simply one more series of ex- 
ercises on their way to graduation and admission to college. The 
teacher, however, dwells on the meaning of the drama at length, 
succeeds in attracting the attention of the class, and finally asks 
the pupils to write papers giving their own notions of the piece. 
About a third of the class evidently see some point to it all. 
Again, the drama is talked over in class, a great deal of discus- 
sion ensues, and after a time the pupils write again. This time 
all but a few individuals seem to catch the idea, and several of 
them present more nearly adequate notions than did anybody on 
the first trial. We are now sure that the majority of the class 
has had a vicarious experience in the form of a literary master- 
piece which will add to their capacity to interpret values in life. 


3 Oe ee r. 


THE APPRECIATION TYPE R37 


A part of the experience of the race and a sense of such expe- 
rience has been communicated to them. We hope that the vicar- 
ious experience will never be anything other than vicarious in 
their cases. Whether or not the teaching will contribute to a fa- 
vorable attitude toward the reading of Shakespeare is another 
question. If it is supported by several such experiences it prob- 
ably will do so, at least in the cases of some pupils. Hence, the 
place and importance and limitations of what are sometimes 
called “‘Courses for Reading and Study.” The same argument 
applies with equal force to courses in music or others of the fine 
arts. The final product of the period of general education in the 
appreciation type is much like that of the science type, namely, 
self-dependence. The pupil has been trained to seek his satis- 
factions in the fine arts, in his philosophy of life, in his code of 
moral obligations—and he does so. If he does not, he has not 
been educated in the field. All his courses and all the teaching 
which he has encountered have failed to exert the transforming 
influence which is education. Nor is this all of self-dependence. 

Youth is prone to think that the world owes the individual 
his happiness. It is hard to learn the lesson that happiness and 
peace of soul must in the end be sought through hard work, 
through self-denial and often through experiences which are the 
reverse of pleasurable. When the growing young person has 
reached the level at which he does sense this principle, he is edu- 
cated indeed. A friend of the author could get little satisfaction 
from grand opera but he realized that others did so and he 
thought he saw the reason why. Intellectually, he was convinced 
that a value existed there which might be his. Accordingly, he 
trained himself by study and by a frequent attendance, which 
was at times irksome. In the end, the power in appreciation 
came, and he had a lifelong resource within himself. The clas- 
sics, whether of art or of nature, commonly refuse to yield their 
riches to the casual acquaintance. Their riches must be sought. 


__ The first impression of Niagara Falls or of the Grand Canyon is 


apt to be disappointing; it is only in weeks of daily contact that 


332 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


the grandeur makes its full appeal. In the presence of a great 
painting, we tend at first to make a casual survey and pass on. 
Its value barely begins to register until we have stood before it 
several times. In the end, we return year after year and always 
gain a new sense of value and aesthetic reality. The likelihood 
that a classic will call us back after the first meeting of course 
depends somewhat on our native inclinations, but it probably 
depends very much more on the breadth and depth of our apper- 
ceptive mass. In the end, the classics are the great storehouses 
of the values to which the youth adjusts himself in the apprecia- 
tion type of experience. It has been said that they are not good 
because they are old, but old because they are good. For years, 
perhaps for centuries, the race has been able to find its higher 
satisfactions in them, and so they abide. 

In this final product of the appreciation type, then, the ob- 
jective comes to be convincing the youth that in his maturity he 
must actively seek his peace and happiness wherever the expe- 
rience of mankind has made it evident that they can best be 
found. In guiding the pupil into this final and incomparably 
most important adjustment, the integrity and unity of the school 
as a teaching institution is again severely tested. The teachers 
who are concerned with courses in the appreciation type and the 
personnel officers of the school, who are concerned with over- 
sight of the developing personalities of the pupils, must all focus 
their efforts upon the adjustment. In the end, it becomes a prob- 
lem in the administrative technique of teaching. What evidence 
have we in the case of Pupil A that he is approaching his appre- 
ciative maturity? What evidence that Pupil B has attained it? 
We cannot set up standard tests; that would be absurd. But in 
the case of every pupil in school there are innumerable scraps of 
evidence which tell the story. Every teacher and every person- 
nel officer sees such indications in abundance almost every day. 
They can be noted and recorded if the faculty will train itself in 
the art of systematic observation. 

Here is a boy in the tenth grade. He is of moderate talent 


a 


THE APPRECIATION TYPE 333 


but he is steadily growing in his taste in literature, in music, and 
in the fine arts generally. His teachers become thoroughly ac- 
quainted with him in classroom periods which in other schools 
would be devoted to the routine daily recitation. He is far from 
a problem case, but nevertheless there are frequent conferences 
with the parents. His personnel! officer meets him in frequent 
contact. Certain outstanding facts are noted. In literature, he 
not only reads what is easily within his apperceptive reach, but 
he constantly seeks to reach out for matter which is somewhat 
beyond him. We discover that he saves his money to buy at least 
one season ticket for the best music which his city has to offer. 
He is a frequent visitor at the city’s art collections. The person- 
nel office discovers that he is coming to be one of its main 
supports in developing the school morale; in his scheme of mo- 
tivation, he has substituted duty for interest. He is not actuated 
by the commercialized drive of greed for superior credit, for 
the school awards no marks or grades. Putting the evidence to- 
gether, we find that we can with some confidence put this boy on 
our list of pupils whose characters have been formed. Turning 
to the science-type subjects we find much the same record. Call- 
ing language arts to the bar, we find that he is reading French, 
“for the fun of it.” Follow-up shows that at the end of his jun- 
ior college he is substantially and thoroughly an educated man. 

Here is another boy. This pupil is distinctly more talented 
than the first. He is a brilliant fellow who has acquired intellec- 
tual interests in several fields. He reads a great deal, but he 
never goes beyond the region of what interests him. He creates 
no conduct problems in the school, but he is purely negative in 
that field. The personnel office has his dossier, and the story is 
simply “undeveloped boy.” The family is interviewed, and the 
disclosures confirm the evidence gathered from the school case 
history. Following the family history backward, a story of sys- 
tematic indulgence is uncovered, and the school finds it exceed- 
ingly difficult to convince the older generation of the errors of 
its philosophy of life. Converse with the boy brings out the prin- 


334 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


ciple that he is definitely committed to a philosophy of interest. 
His apperceptive mass for the school subjects of the apprecia- 
tion type is adequate, but he shows no signs of making the final 
and all-important adjustment. He becomes a problem case at 
senior high school level. The forces of the school which operate 
in this field are focused upon the task of bringing him to realize 
the notion that he has reached the point at which he must learn 
to seek the higher satisfactions of life and not merely wait for 
them to come of their own notion. It is a difficult undertaking, 
full of formalistic pitfalls and one which requires infinite tact 
and patience. In the end, the boy seems to be convinced, but un- 
happily he goes to college still an undeveloped boy. If he could 
have remained at the secondary level until maturity had come 
and then passed directly to the university level proper, much 
might have been accomplished. We have to record him, not as 
an instance in which the school has failed but as one in which it 
has not succeeded. 

These instances are real cases, composites rather than pic- 
tures of individual pupils, it is true, but none the less veracious 
representations. Experience shows that the majority of the ulti- 
mate problems of this type can be solved, provided the school 
can identify the true learning product which is implied and fo- 
cus its efforts upon the direct teaching required. 


i i i, ee, oe ee, i. 


CHAPTER XIX 
TECHNIQUE IN LITERATURE—FREE READING 


Y the term “literature,” as it is used in this chapter and 
B in our discussion of the appreciation type of teaching, 
we mean any good reading which tends to contribute a 
sense of sound values in the pupil’s developing outlook on life. 
We do not limit the term to classics or belles-letires in general. 
We do not include purely informational reading. The objective 
is conceived to be the development of right attitudes through an 
abundance of the reading which reveals wholesome ethical and 
aesthetic values and also an ultimate preference for reading 
which uses adequate literary forms of expression. There is of 
course no hard-and-fast dividing line between purely informa- 
tional reading and that which has a tendency to cultivate right 
ideals and individual standards of literary taste. Last Days of 
Pompeii, a favorite of some pupils in the fifth and sixth grades, 
exhibits both sentiment and information. Parkman’s studies in 
the history of New France are invaluable assimilative material 
for a senior high school or junior college course in history, but 
they are also a treasure-house of heroic incident and master- 
pieces of literary style. On the other hand, a supplementary 
reader in science or geography is seldom more than a body of in- 
formational material, valuable for extended reading in science- 
type courses but not material for the appreciation type. 


APPERCEPTIVE MASS 


Our children come to us from homes of abundant books, in 
which the child is accustomed to see every member of the family 
reading a great deal and to hear frequent discussion of books; 
from other homes in which there is no tradition of reading; and 
from others still in which the elders are positively illiterate. No 


335 


336 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


doubt some children inherit tendencies which manifest them- 
selves as a liking for reading, while others do not. Whatever the 
actual genetic story may be, there is no reasonable doubt that 
most if not all normal children come into the world endowed 
with purely human potentialities in this direction, with which 
the school can do much, if it begins early enough. We occasion- 
ally encounter a pupil at even senior high school or junior col- 
lege level who has literally never in his life read a book other 
than those assigned as school exercises. There is not much hope 
of opening the treasures of Jiterature to such people. 

The initial problem of the school is then to begin with the 
primary period as soon as the reading adaptation has been estab- 
lished, or even earlier, and endeavor to bring the little children 
into something like a common apperceptive background. The 
story period, even from the day when the child comes to kinder- 
garten, is a manifest opportunity. It would not be impossible to 
trace a very plausible connection between a student’s real profit 
from a college course and a fortunate start in a good kinder- 
garten. 

As far as reading is concerned, as we have repeatedly seen, 
the meat of the matter is to expose the primary pupil to an 
abundance of good material which he may utilize for free read- 
ing. And happily there is an abundance. Not only has the typical 
school reader come to be a work of genuine merit, as well from 
the standpoint of content as from that of pedagogical organiza- 
tion; but there is a goodly body of new material like the books 
of Beatrix Potter and Burgess. A rapid survey of the reading 
tables in the primary school on a certain day revealed the fol- 
lowing list available to the children and liberally used by the 
children: 


A great many school readers 
Mother Goose 

Several of the Beatrix Potter books 
Thornton W. Burgess 

Story of Three Bears [illustrated] 


TECHNIQUE IN LITERATURE 337 


Alice in Wonderland 
Just So Stories 
Howard Pyle’s King Arthur 
Gulliver’s Travels 
Arabian Nights 
Peter Pan [illustrated] 
_ Child’s Garden of Verses 
Uncle Remus 
Eugene Field Reader 


The culmination of the primary period could not be better 
set forth than by the quotation from a work report which fol- 
lows. ‘The period is April 4—-June 13, 1924. The pupils are none 


TABLE XI 


Work REPORT 


Pupil Animal Books} Fairy Stories History |Miscellaneous Total 

OE Se 8 d-sbas,6. 0:30, 4,5' 5 5 5 2 8 20 
EA ctab oftiesaAvlal's\e 2 2 I 5 10 
as dist Sis aithvliay ose: a> eee eee 7 ee Oe ee ee 3 
Bee as iota sites 2's 2 2 9 6 19 
Beers eee Ca Viale 09 S°S%e ota bs 2 I I 5 9 
id AAT ae 9 I I 3 14 
PAG Put Bieta Pale GMs e a5! th I 4 2 6 13 
Tse Pets fics 10.4 Pace G3 Bi a aaa tacked I I 4 
MES Ts gadis ces S08 es Drewes laaslont eee 4 I 6 
Bees Bal Sa i's a, ole. dvb k's I I 7 I b Ke) 
et A eee 3 4 3 3 13 
Maa wks Wace hora shel a eae o's eles I 6 2 9 
Ata D chst aides uietebemeidiarira ote ae Wats whe eiaunree 8 2 Io 
BMC ant oa sy sins tse 4 4 5 I 14 
Mess id's 5 wisn die he AUT iSelect lee I 2 7 
MEN as of 5 ars ow apiits 3 4 VERT AN eth Deane II 
DPTONAG Coos aces ees Syn). LA aes 5 2 IO 
Bis ite oh d pies pie sim ins te 2 2 2 4 ro 
REM e stag sds aes 6 es 2 3 3 I 9 
47 34 67 53 201 


of them beyond third-grade level. “The children have learned to 
use the library and they show considerable judgment in the 
choice of books.” A tabulation of the reading of a section of 
nineteen pupils is shown in Table XI. 


338 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


The record is good evidence of the reading adaptation, ex- 
cept perhaps in the case of Pupils 3 and 8, but not in itself con- 
clusive proof. An eight-year-old child does not of his own accord 
read a book each week if he has any particular trouble with 
reading as an art. It is, further, good evidence that most of the 
children in this section have probably established a working 
background for the development of inclinations toward good 
reading. 

Some of this reading might have been done at home. Prob- 
ably most of it was, in fact, done in the schoolroom—not in the 
school reading-room, but in the schoolroom. In the cases of the 
majority of young children, as we find them in the public schools, 
small reliance can be placed upon the resources of the home. 
Therefore, the veritable foundation of the child’s whole educa- 
tional development rests in large measure upon the book tables 
of the primary school. 


THE READING-ROOM 


Given actual reading ability and contact with abundant 
book and periodical material, most children will read very wide- 
ly. Thus arises one of the school’s chief opportunities and obli- 
gations. The background which has been established in the pri- 
mary school must have its opportunity to induce the continuous 
expansion of the pupil’s ideational content. If the pupil’s nor- 
mal growth in taste for good reading has been started, failure to 
make the appropriate contacts continuously during the second- 
ary period will bring about a prompt atrophy. Hence the school 
reading-room already described. The reading-room should of 
course be in charge of a teacher who is qualified by education, 
by training, and by natural aptitude, to guide children in their 
choice of reading. The room, as far as appreciation is concerned, 
secures two important ends. It is the source of expanding expe- 
rience with books which are calculated te generate growth in 
sense of values; and its records are the test of the pupil’s 
progress. 


TECHNIQUE IN LITERATURE 339 


Of course, the selection of books is the primary considera- 
tion. The situation is not unlike that presented by the pupil’s 
dietary at home. If the family provides a proper amount of 
wholesome, palatable food, in the appropriate nutritional bal- 
ance, the child will grow in a healthy and normal manner, other 
things being equal. If the food appeals to the palate but does 
not nourish the bodily frame and substance, the child will not 
grow as he should, and he will be peculiarly subject to the at- 
tacks of various maladies. A similar result will appear if the 
child is compelled to eat unpalatable food. He may gormandize, 
and his normal growth will suffer in consequence. Finally, he 
may eat food which is palatable but unwholesome and even poi- 
sonous. The analogy to the selection of books is close. A great 
many books of the cheap juvenile order are agreeable to the 
taste but they build up no sense of values. Quite the reverse; a 
prolonged diet of such leaves the pupil unwilling to read any- 
thing which does not contribute a “thrill.” If the pupil is as- 
signed a reading course composed of books which his elders 
think he should like and he is compelled to write a series of that 
deadly thing called a ‘‘book report,” he will not only profit noth- 
ing but he is more than likely to acquire an aversion to reading 
altogether. Especially in the upper period of the secondary 
school, the senior high school and junior college, the pupil may 
encounter many books of a poisonous character. Prevailingly, 
such books belong to the region of perverse literature. But for 
timorous enforcement of federal laws, many of them would be 
excluded from the mails. The authors are commonly people of 
some literary talent but afflicted with emotional disorders well 
recognized by the mental hygienist. Not only do such books 
tend to establish in youth perverted sense of values, but they not 
infrequently infect the young person with the very maladies 
with which the authors have become afflicted. Finally, the pupil 
may read too much, just as he may eat too much. In that case, 
he is induced to spend more time on the playground or in the 
school shops. | 


340 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


Now the school cannot control the pupil’s entire experience 
of life or of books, but through skilful and systematic co-opera- 
tion with the home it can do much. Most of all, it can rigorously 
weed out all harmful books from its own shelves. If the school 
succeeds, during twelve years of the school life, let us say, in 
building up a sound sense of values in the pupil’s appreciation of 
life, the latter will tend to turn aside from much poisonous ma- 
terial just as the well-nourished body throws off the toxins of 
unwholesome food. Guidance but not constraint in the pupil’s 
free reading is the teaching precept. The first step in effective 
guidance is accomplished when a system of wise selection is in 
operation. 

In the second place, the teacher must know her shelves and 
get to know the pupils. The latter is more difficult than the for- 
mer, but it can be done. There should be a reading-room and 
reading-room teacher for perhaps every two hundred and fifty 
pupils in Grades IV—-VI, for every five hundred from the begin- 
ning of the junior high school to the end of junior college. This 
teacher has an advantage over most other members of the staff, 
since she meets all pupils in the school, or at least all in her 
group, while classroom and departmental teachers meet only 
certain sections from time to time. Nevertheless, it is always 
possible for the reading-room teacher to pool the impressions of 
a given pupil which have been acquired by several teachers. In 
the end, the teacher fits the book to the pupil at his present stage 
of development. 

Guidance is essentially salesmanship. Initially, much de- 
pends upon the accessibility of books. It is amazing to note the 
difference between the appeal of books which lie title upward on 
a table and the appeal of others which stand on shelves, especial- 
ly if the latter are beyond the pupil’s reach. The shelves, how- 
ever, are open to the pupils. The ideal general study-room of the 
school or of the group is the reading-room with books shelved 
about the walls, accessible to all pupils and in plain view from 
the teacher’s position. There will be a certain loss of books un- 


TECHNIQUE IN LITERATURE 341 


der this plan, but loss can be reduced to a minimum. The cost of 
a minimum annual loss is one of the most distinctly profitable 
expenditures which the school can make. It is likely to represent 
the cost of an effective piece of educational procedure, whereas 
the saving which accrues through having books checked across 
the librarian’s desk would be at the expense of the major portion 
of the reading-room influence upon the pupil. Of course, pupils 
should be trained to check out books which are withdrawn for 
home reading. Here again, systematic home-and-school co-oper- 
ation accomplishes much. The salesman convinces his customer 
that the latter desires the commodity which is offered. The mod- 
ern salesman makes no attempt to “cram a sale down the cus- 
tomer’s throat,” nor does he effect the sale of goods which he 
knows beforehand are not likely to prove satisfactory. Similarly, 
the good teacher, in guiding the free reading of the children, will 
avoid using the strong arm of school compulsion and likewise 
will try to avoid inducing a child to read a book which is un- 
likely to appeal to that particular child. 

A certain teacher of rare good sense was teaching a ninth- 
year class in Ivanhoe. The work was being dramatized, and 
most of the pupils were enthusiastic. Their free reading was for 
the most part wholesome and abundant. One girl, however, was 
getting nothing out of the literature period, and reading nothing. 
Many teachers would have classed her as ‘‘dumb” and let it go 
at that. Inquiry elicited the fact that she had recently come into 
the system from a school in which reading meant simply oral ex- 
ercises from graded readers, and the further not uncommon fact 
that she had literally never in her life, of her own accord, read 
a book of any sort. The teacher knew the pupil and gave her 
Little Women. She read it with interest, called for more, and be- 
came quite a different sort of girl. 

Guidance should be systematic. The tabulation found on 
page 337 belongs to the primary classroom reading-table period. 
It might have appeared, somewhat expanded as to its classifica- 
tion, anywhere in the secondary period. Suppose this to have 


342 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


been the case, and substitute “Literature” for “Fairy Stories.” 
Pupil 1 has a fairly well-balanced reading diet. One-quarter of 
his reading is in the field which we classify as literature. Sub- 
stantially the same is true of Pupils 7, 11, 14, 16, and 19. On 
the other hand, Pupils 2, 4, 5, 6,9, 10, 12, 13, 15, 17, and 18 con- 
spicuously need some guidance into this field. Pupils 3 and 8 
require further study concerning reading in general. 

A convenient record sheet of individual pupil’s reading 
used in the elementary section of our laboratory is shown in 
Table XIT. A similar record is used in another connection at 
high-school level (see p. 344). 


TABLE XII 
ON AM ee ee na 


GRADE (year of school life) 


Titles of Books Authors Date Completed 


Pim care ae ne nan ne cee LR REN ENTS fm 


A RA i ERY ARR gm AS 


Now procedure of this sort can easily become so formalized 
as to destroy any possible good effect. If any sort of credit is 
attached to the record, it will not only become useless, but since 
the pupil keeps his own record, will generate a spirit of mendac- 
ity. If, on the other hand, the attitude of the teacher is, “I am 
interested to know what you are reading, and it will be interest- 
ing to you later to know what you have read,” the pupil will 
very commonly keep a truthful account. The pupil is encour- 
aged to keep a record of home reading as well as one of books 
read at school. If undesirable books appear in the home-reading 
list, as they will, the teacher refrains from saying “Naughty, 
naughty; that is a bad book.” She rather puts the pupil in con- 


TECHNIQUE IN LITERATURE 343 


tact with better books and waits patiently for the result. In her 
occasional conferences with the parent, she talks good reading. 
But, thinks the reader, ‘“How does the teacher know that the 
pupil has really read these books, and read them thoroughly?” 
The answer is, “We do not care.” We are not dealing with as- 
similative material in arithmetic or physics or history. As soon 
as the pupil knows that he is really free to read anything he 
pleases and as much or as little as he pleases, he will keep a 
truthful record. The following is the list of a pupil in the fifth 
grade for books read between October 24, 1923, and January 
24,1924. 
Ivanhoe . ; - « Retold by Alice Jackson 


Stories of Three Saints : . MacGregor 
Stories from the Crusades . Kelmen 
History of France . : t Marshall 
The Little Crusader Cousin . Stein 
The Great Army . yh weit Letts 
The Little Hunchback Zia . Burnett 
The Little Book of Our Country Tappan 
American Hero Stories .  . Tappan 
The Brushwood Boy . . Kipling 
Last Days of Marie Antoinette | Gower 
Primrose Ring : - sawyer 
Stories of Greece and Rime . Baker 
American History . ’ -- */ "Price and Perry 
Merchant of Venice  . . Shakespeare 
Decline and Fall (15 pp.) : Gibbon 
Last Days of Pompei. air Lytton 
Hero Stories from American 

History : Blaisdell and Ball 
The Wonderful re ry) i 

Ea : Lagerlof 


The Burning of re fee an ) Church 


There is much food for thought even in this short list. It is 
tolerably evident that the little girl is telling the truth without 
pretense. The readings are in the order in which they were done, 


344 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


and one can trace threads of sequence from book to book, inter- 
rupted by browsings in different fields. She attacks Gibbon, and 
of course finds it too much for her. It is interesting to note that 
she returns to the attack the next year, but with no better suc- 
cess. The same fate attends her attacks upon The Burning of 
Rome. 

The pupil’s free reading is unconstrained behavior. The 
character of his reading is therefore perhaps the best evidence 
we can secure bearing upon the issue, Has instruction in litera- 
ture registered? As the pupil’s reading records accumulate, it is 
very easy in the cases of some pupils to trace the definite influ- 
ence of classroom instruction. In the cases of others, there is no 
such evidence: In the cases of some, there is evidence that litera- 
ture teaching has had no effect. The instructor who is a teacher 
of pupils rather than a teacher of books finds some of his best 
guidance in the reading-room. 

When the pupil has reached junior high school level, his 
range of interests is apt to expand, and he encounters in a well- 
organized program of study a broader range of content courses. 
He is likely to read more. Accordingly, the device here de- 
scribed is utilized for keeping track of his reading. He is given 
two sets of 4- by 6-inch cards, one set in white and the other in 
buff. On the white card he records all books read in or in con- 
nection with his literature courses; on the buff card are entered 
the titles of his free reading. Precisely the same principles are 
observed as those described for the guidance of reading at ele- 
mentary-school level. I have before me a typical set of such 
cards for an eighth-ninth-grade pupil, a girl. 

The list of sixty-nine titles on the free reading card, running 
from October 9, 1922, to December 4, 1923, is too long to record 
here. Some of the titles, it should be observed, are simply those 
of periodicals which were probably read only in part and others 
those of poems. There are on the list, however, the titles of 
thirty-eight books. From the first of October to the following 
March, there appears only one reading which would classify as 


TECHNIQUE IN LITERATURE 345 


desirabie educative literature. There are twenty-four titles in 
this period, mostly those of extremely popular periodicals and 
washy juveniles. Of the forty-five titles in the period running 
from the last of March until the following December there are 
but five of the type which prevailed in the earlier period. Like 
all the rest of us, the pupil occasionally falls under the influence 
of the old Adam, or, perhaps in this case, the old Eve. Among 
her better reading is The Alhambra, a list of thirteen ballads, a 
course of Wilkie Collins, Papini’s Life of Christ—all read be- 





_ cause she wished to and not because she had to. We note on her 


white card that she began the year with first-year literature, and 
at the beginning of the second semester she entered the “Com- 
munity Life” course with its rich reading in related literature. 
Early in the spring, the influence of these two courses began to 
appear. Now, this child made her first contact with the better 
type of reading at the beginning of her first high-school year. Is 
there any doubt that, if she had enjoyed the same reading-room 
opportunities which the fifth-grade child cited earlier was enjoy- 
ing, she would have come to junior high school level not only 
with a much better apperceptive mass in this field but with a 
much better sense of values? 

Another pupil, a boy, who has had the reading-room con- 
tacts of the elementary school, exhibits less favorable symptoms. 
Sixty-four titles appear on his buff card for his first high-school 
year, seventh grade, thirteen of which are numbers of the 
Youth’s Companion and American Boy. About twenty others 
are juveniles of the type of the inevitable Tarzan and the impos- 
sible Mark Tidd. Among the remainder appear Jack London, 
Seton, and Conan Doyle. There also appear Howard Pyle, J. F. 
Cooper, and Jules Verne. The boy is plainly very much in the 
thrill-hunting stage, and it is of course entirely possible that he 
will never come out of it. Nevertheless, the teachers have a solid 
basis of recorded genuine pupil experience on which to work. 


_ We are curious to find out if there has been any real progress, 


346 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


and so we turn to his card for a period two years later, the fall 
of 1924. Ina period of nine weeks we find the following list: 

Story of Ab 

Before Adam (Jack London) 

American Boy 

Mark Tidd Manufacturer 

Mark Tidd’s Citadel 

Boy Electrician 

Story of Mankind (Van Loon) 

The Tempest (Shakespeare) 

American Boy 7 

Hamlet 

A Tramp Abroad (Mark Twain) 

Romeo and Juliet 

Silas Marner 


After all, the boy is growing, appreciably rather than vigo- 
rously, although we may suspect that his reading of Shakespeare 
and George Eliot represents an honest effort to seek the better 
values than the satisfaction itself. However, we also note that 
this fall he was in the “Classics” course. 


CONFERENCE GROUPS 


If we provide for the apportionment of a reading-room to 
every two hundred and fifty pupils in Grades IV—VI in schools 
in which the first three grades use their schooiroom reading ta- 
bles, we shall have groups not too large for the oversight of the 
reading-room teacher. She meets them year after year, and she 
can, as we have seen, pool the current knowledge of pupils which 
other teachers possess. 

Five hundred pupils at junior-senior high school level, or a 
school of five hundred pupils which includes junior college, all 
use the high-school reading-room. On a six-period school day, 
with one period for physical education and four for classroom 
study, there will be in the vicinity of eighty-five pupils using the 
reading-room at each period. This is not too large a number for 


TECHNIQUE IN LITERATURE 347 


supervision, but five hundred is too large a number for the 
teacher’s intimate acquaintance and guidance. Hence, it comes 
to be desirable to organize conference groups to meet with 
teachers, perhaps once a week or once in two weeks. 

At these conference periods, teacher and pupils talk over 
reading. Now, to be effective, the conferences must be informal 
and intimate. In other words, the teacher must get to know the 
pupils whom he or she meets, and of course the teacher must be 
gifted with genuine tact in dealing with young people. Needless 
to say, the teacher must have an extended and somewhat inti- 
mate knowledge of books and of the reading ways of young 
folks. The efficiency expert is distinctly out of his element in 
arrangements for such conferences. The teacher who turns to 
the pupil, on the entrance of the latter, with cool professional 
air, selects a formidable-looking card from a cabinet, and pro- 
ceeds to probe the pupil’s inner consciousness will accomplish 
very little indeed. Rather the greeting will be, “Well, John, 
what have you been reading lately?” Or, “How do you like 
eo 

Ideally, every pupil should be in such a group throughout 
his high-school years. Practically, this is seldom feasible. The 
group assigned to the conference leader must be small enough to 
enable the latter to know well each of the pupils and to keep in 
mind the ways of each. In a fifty-minute period, there is time 
for perhaps four or five conferences on the average, time for the 
teacher to see twenty to twenty-five pupils each week when the 
teacher has one conference period each school day. Some teach- 
ers may carry on a cycle of two weeks before returning to the 
first pupil; others may not be able to know so many. Perhaps a 
group of fifty to each such teacher, each pupil of the group com- 
ing for conference once in two weeks, is a maximum allowance. 
Pupils who are registered in literature courses have not the same 
need of guidance in their general reading as have those who for 
the time being are not so registered. If pupils are normally reg- 





348 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


istered in two literature courses during a junior-senior high 
school career of six years, the proportion thus provided for will 
be on the average one-third of the total enrolment. In a school 
of five hundred, this leaves three hundred and thirty-three pupils 
to be provided for in conference groups, perhaps seven groups. 
Many pupils, however, arrive at reading self-dependence com- 
paratively early in the high-school period. Their reading tastes 
are substantially formed. Others come from homes in which 
reading is guided as well as the school can guide it or better. 
Hence the maximum allowance for group conference is ma- 
terially reduced in the presence of one or both of these consid- 
erations. 

We have several times referred to the menace of perverse. 
literature, or writings which have real merit as examples of lit- 
erary craftsmanship but whose whole content and philosophy of 
life are expressions of a perverted emotional life in the author. 
Such books have become particularly numerous since the Great 
War. As a class, they exhibit a shallow wit and recklessness of 
statement which are singularly well calculated to mislead the 
later adolescent—perhaps because the authors themselves are 
apt to be examples of personality development retarded at the 
adolescent stage. Boys and girls of parts are prone to find these 
books somewhere and read them. Oftentimes the parent in his 
innocence mistakes such reading for evidence of superior taste 
and wisdom in his offspring. The school cannot prohibit such 
reading; to do so would only increase its appeal. It can care- 
fully exclude the like from its own shelves and classrooms and 
furnish an abundance of more wholesome material. But that is 
not enough. It must set the pupil right by exposing the shallow- 
ness and perversity of such writing, usually a simple task if the 
teacher himself has arrived at the stage of maturity and culture 
which makes him a competent teacher at senior high school or 
junior college level. The conference group, tactfully handled, 


TECHNIQUE IN LITERATURE 349 


gives us our best opportunity for the identification of such pupil 
problems and for appropriate correction. 

Thus, m the reading-room and its records, in the pupil’s 
free-reading report card, and in the group conference, we have 
the means of systematically guiding the pupil in his contacts 
with the best values of literature, of studying his individual 
growth, and of securing as valid objective tests of the extent and 
direction of that growth as is perhaps possible in the apprecia- 


tion type. 
CO-OPERATION OF HOME AND SCHOOL 


It is perhaps not too much to say that the whole process of 
general education depends on effective co-operation between 
home and school. Home and school are the two social institu- 
tions which mold the child of the race into his racial inheritance, 
and in the modern world there is no escape from the interrela- 
tion. Each must do its duty by the child, and it must act intelli- 
gently. The home, however, in most of the field with which the 
school is concerned, has long since become dependent upon the 
latter for guidance. In the school subjects which belong to other 
types than that with which we are now dealing, effective co-oper- 
ation consists largely in an intelligent apprehension on the part 
of the home of what the school is trying to do and then refusing 
to meddle with school processes. In the appreciation type, how- 
ever, both in the region of moral behavior and in that of growth 
in acceptance of sound cultural values, it is essential that, as far 
as possible, a plan of positive co-operation be organized. The 
principle has special application in the matter of the pupil’s 
reading. 

Of course, in some homes there is no reading at all. In others 
the child’s reading growth is nourished and guided quite as well 
as the school can guide it. Neither of these classes of homes cre- 
ates any formidable problem. A great middle class, however, is 
composed of homes in which there is perhaps the most genuine 


350 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


concern for the right upbringing of children but, as far as read- 
ing is concerned, a minimum of wise guidance. It is this region 
in which the cheap juvenile flourishes. The chief characteristics 
of this type of reading remain much the same from generation to 
generation. The grandparents of our children were apt to read 
juveniles in which the characters were impossibly and unwhole- 
somely good; the parents lived with day-dream children who 
were impossibly heroic; the juveniles of today usually exhibit 
youngsters who are impossibly clever. In all, there is a set of 
rewards for the righteous and punishments for the vicious which 
could scarcely exist in any sane world. The success of a best 
seller in this field consists in its capacity to arouse the maximum 
of thrill with the minimum of mental effort on the part of the 
reader. The child who is once thoroughly inoculated with this 
type of reading is apt to read nothing else, and it seems to have 
a tendency to control his whole future career as a desultory 
reader. A single home in which it abounds is apt to infect the 
whole neighborhood. Hence, the task of influencing the home. 
The opportunities are too many for enumeration here. The two 
suggestions which follow will illustrate. 

Well-nigh every such home is in a quandary at Christmas 
time as to presents for the children. Books suggest themselves. 
The tables of the bookstore are piled high with examples of the 
extremely profitable type of commodity to which we have re- 
ferred. Aset is purchased, and judging by the results the present 
is highly successful. For a long period of years, the return of the 
season augments the stock on hand. Now, most parents on the 
whole desire to do the right thing by their children. Hence the — 
opportunity of the printed school list of books for Christmas — 
presents, especially for the younger children. Obviously, the ef- — 
fect of such a list will depend upon the character of the books 
recommended and upon the ingenuity with which the list is pre- 
sented, but, appealing or otherwise, the effect of such lists year 
after year is bound to be cumulative. 

The parent-teacher association movement is potentially 





TECHNIQUE IN LITERATURE 351 


perhaps the most effective means of setting up the school-home 
bond which we have. An appropriate program for at least one 
meeting each year may well center around the topic, “Children’s 
Reading.” The teachers explain to the parents the program 
which the school has and which it is trying to carry out. Some 
general considerations touching the matter of reading are pre- 
sented. Examples of good and bad reading are drawn in illustra- 
tion, and, finally, suggestive lists of reading are presented. 


CHAPTER XX 
COURSES IN LITERATURE 


S soon as we give over definitely the notions of time-to- 
aN be-spent and ground-to-be-covered as guiding princi- 
ples in teaching and school organization, and adopt in 
their place certain learning products in the form of adaptations 
in the individual pupil, the rationale of courses in literature be- 
comes at once much more intelligible. We no longer think of 
such courses as being Miles Standish and Evangeline in the sev- 
enth grade; Snowbound in the eighth (all the way from New 
England where it has a possible meaning to Oregon where its 
meaning is, to say the least, far fetched); Jvanhoe and The 
Talisman in the ninth; and the “requirements for reading and 
study” thereafter. Rather, we raise the question, What ends in 
appreciation can courses in literature serve? 

Keeping in mind the principle of free reading in abundance, 
with systematic and skilful guidance, further needs at once sug- 
gest themselves. In the first place, the pupil will not be likely to 
find his way into some of the most important values in literature 
unless those values are illuminated in systematic class work. In 
the second place, it should be remembered, much literature 
makes its best appeal when it is read aloud or read in the social- 
group discussion. Its value is thus contributed to the developing 
taste of the pupil whether he ever selects the piece or similar 
pieces for free reading or not. Its reflection in the field of free 
reading is seen, or should be seen, in the improvement of his free 
reading, albeit the latter shows title by title no particular rela- 
tion to any of the books read in class. How, then, shall we or- 
ganize courses? If we survey the field and keep in mind the 
nature of the learning product in appreciation, we shall find 
room in the secondary period from about fourth-grade level, as 


352 


COURSES IN LITERATURE 353 


schools ordinarily are, to the end of the junior college period or 
the level of educational maturity, for the courses described 
below. 

General literature.—This course, as it has been worked out 
experimentally with fairly satisfactory results, may be pictured 
as the reading in class of a great many pieces of which the fol- 
lowing taken from a current work report are samples: The Re- 
venge (Tennyson); Paul Revere’s Ride; The Prisoner of Chil- 
lon; Enoch Arden; Evangeline; The Raven; Cotter’s Saturday 
Night; Marmion; Vision of Sir Launfal. Others, of a different 
type, are: The Celebrated Jumping Frog; How Much Land 
Does a Man Need? ; and short stories from the following au- 
thors: Poe, Hawthorne, E. E. Hale, Hamlin Garland, Tarking- 
ton, Kipling, O. Henry, Stevenson, and many others. A variant 
of the course content, especially for schools in which a liberal 
supply of complete pieces of literature is not available, is the use 
of such books of selections as Lyman and Hill’s Literature and 
Living. . 

When should such a course be offered? The answer is, As 
soon as a group of pupils is ready for it. The danger is that it 
will become stereotyped as English I or Literature I and always 
be assigned to the ninth grade. Equally futile is it to dub the 
course “Junior High School Literature” and always offer it in 
Grades VII and VIII. To be sure, circumstances may usually 
decree that it wisely and rightly belongs at the level last named; 
_ but pedagogical circumstances should be allowed to determine 
_ and not the exigencies of a stereotyped administration. In gen- 
eral, we can find the appropriate place for the course on the fol- 
_ lowing principles. 

_ The course is not likely to register, except in the usual 
_ chance fashion, with pupils who have an inadequate appercep- 
tive mass. Ideally, the pupil’s experiential background should 
include a child life close to nature in the open with abundant 
contact with his contemporaries. In any case, it must include an 
indubitable reading adaptation; a rich background of free read- 


354 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


ing; and courses in geography, history, nature, and the like 
which possess real content and are not mere skeletons of infor- 
mation. 

The reading-room records of a group of children, in the sixth 
grade perhaps, may very well reveal the fact that they are ready 
for the course. Another group may not be ready until a year 
later, or it may be two years later. In the language of the teach- 
er, they are not mature enough, and this is a case in which the 
teacher’s verdict is based upon evidence and not upon the notion 
' to which we teachers are all prone that our pupils are never ma- 
ture enough to profit from our ministrations. On the other hand, 
a group of pupils who are relatively mature in the physical, 
mental, and social sense may give evidence that they need just 
the kind of stimulus which such a course will afford. These are 
apt to be either children who are reluctant to leave the field of 
the juvenile or who are absorbed in things mechanical. Wise 
forcing, not too late, sometimes accomplishes the needed result. 
For instance, note the following quotation from a seventh-grade 
work report: ‘A boy in the class who had neglected the required 
reading throughout October was discovered to have read during 
that month six of the series [inferior juveniles]. Report — 
of the neglected work was sent home and pressure was brought 
to bear on the weekly report. The next month showed only one ~ 
book read of the undesirable type and five thoroughly good 
books read with very evident enthusiasm.” 

Generally speaking, then, appropriate administrative tech- — 
nique means keeping this course open to pupils from about the 
sixth grade onward. In a school system in which there are ap- — 
proximately one hundred and eighty pupils in the fourth, fifth, 
and sixth years of an elementary school, feeding into a junior 
high school of about the same number, we might in practice find 
perhaps one section of the course in the sixth year, three sec- 
tions in the seventh, two sections in the eighth, and one section 
in the ninth. Keeping in mind the principle that the learning ~ 
product is not the conning of a particular content but rather the 











COURSES IN LITERATURE 355 


enlargement of the pupil’s resources, it is clear that the sections 
at different levels from the sixth grade to perhaps the ninth need 
not necessarily be dealing with the same reading material. The 
end is achieved in the sixth grade with one set of books; in the 
ninth, in a section of more mature pupils, the same end in appre- 
ciation is achieved with a different set. 

Later courses.—Under the influence of college-entrance re- 
quirements, probably, it has come to be felt that some special 
sanctity attaches to the term “classics.” Hence, even in the 
most progressive schools, we commonly find a year devoted to 
the course under that name. Other courses may follow, in the 
effort to break away from tradition pure and simple, such as the 
University High School courses in “Contemporary Literature,” 
“The Drama,” etc. Logical classification of subject matter is 
ever a strong motive. If, however, we apply the tests: of the 
nature of the true learning products in general; of the objectives 
of the appreciation type; and of the reasonable purpose of 
courses in literature, the problem takes on quite a different as- 
pect. Beyond the course in general literature, what fields are 
_ there into which the pupil is not likely to find his way through 
_ free reading under guidance, or, having found his way, is not 
likely to reach the essential values save through systematic 
_ classroom instruction? Apparently they are the drama, epic and 
lyric poetry, the essay, and the novel.. Perhaps the short story 
_ should be added. In these fields, the pupil’s actual or potential 
environment presses close, in the drama very close indeed. Ad- 
justment is imperative if education is to take place. We are 
dealing here mainly with pupils who are at “senior high school 
level” or “junior college level,” as those terms are commonly 
used, but, other things being equal, there is no good reason why 
- individual pupils at junior high school level who are ready . 
_ should not be admitted to certain of these later courses. 

The drama.—First of these in point of the pupil’s level of 
_ maturity is the drama course—first because, in the form of the 
moving picture especially, it is the region in which his environ- 


356 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


ment presses most closely, and first because the adolescent has 
not yet passed beyond the influence of the dramatic instinct of 
childhood. The drama was made to be acted or at least read 
aloud. Hence, there is little likelihood that the pupil will pick up 
a liking from his free reading. 

The objective is of course to lead the pupil to sense good 
dramatic values and thus to lead him to prefer such to the taw- 
dry, sentimental, sensational, and, it may be, sensual produc- 
tions, for which there will always be a ready market so long as 
people with educated dramatic tastes are not numerous enough 
to furnish an audience to real dramatic art, except perhaps in a 
very few of the larger cities. 

The materials of the course are the great plays of all times, 
and we have them in rich abundance. There is every educational 
reason why the plays of Shakespeare and even of Sophocles 
should be brought into the same course with the best contempo- 
rary drama and the best productions in the moving-picture field. 
As long as the pupil finds Shakespeare in one course, contempo- 
rary drama in another, and the moving picture in another or not 
at all, he grows up with the inescapable feeling that he has been 
studying a series of sealed books while that which touches him 
most closely is not drama at all. Literature, like the life which 
it exhibits, is a continuous evolution. It is doubtful if a piece of 
real merit could be made today, or in the sixteenth century, or in 
the fifth century before Christ, apart from the influence of earli- 
er productions. As far as productions appear which are not lit- 
erature in any sense, it is mainly because they are out of the line 
of significant human experience. The most enduring education 
of the youth is that which puts him in possession of the genuine 
values of the past and links them up with the possible values 
which he sees all about him. 

The technique of the drama course, apart from those princi- 
ples which govern all teaching in the appreciation type, rests 
heavily upon actual dramatization. What corresponds to the as- 
similation period in the science type is liberal allowance for 


COURSES IN LITERATURE 357 


working out experience with some plays in this form. A room 
which has been designed with a small stage is of course an asset, 
but the ordinary schoolroom will serve excellently well. 

Other courses —The purposes and objectives of the general- 
literature course and that of the drama apply to courses in lyric 
and epic poetry, the essay, and the novel. In each, the problem 
is to lead the pupil into and light up fields which he would not 
otherwise explore. There is the further problem, in the case of 
the novel especially, of developing in the pupil some critical 
judgment touching the difference between good stories and poor 
stories. In these courses, likewise, is the opportunity for the cen- 
tral attack upon the anti-educational influence of perverse lit- 
erature. 

The administrative officer will likely inquire, “How much 
time must we allot to these various courses, for, after all, the 
school like other institutions has to exist within the limitations 
of the calendar?” In answer, we can only discuss principles. We 
must perforce leave the specific adjustments to the conditions of 
particular schools, to the ingenuity and skill of their executives. 

A course in science or mathematics or history has certain 
natural time delimitations. We have conceived that certain units 
constitute the course. Experience reveals the time allowance 
needed to accomplish the teaching task. Not so with courses in 
literature. The task here is one which lasts as long as the pupil 
is in school or until the evidence shows that sound inclinations 
have definitely been established. The contribution which a sci- 
ence course has to offer is the mastery of a specific series of 
units. We take then as much time as proves to be needed. The 
literature course can contribute nothing so definite. Its master- 
ies are not understandings of particular aspects of the environ- 
ment or methods of interpreting environment, but rather in 
some particular field a series of contacts which are made real to 
the student in respect to meaning and message. Any such field 
itself, however, is virtually unlimited. The pupil might go on 
making such contacts to the end of the chapter, and, if his litera- 


358 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


ture courses are effective, he will in truth do so. The science ~ 


course soon reaches the point at which further learning passes — 


out of the field of general education and into that of specializa- 


tion. Hence, the literature courses and appreciation courses in 


general, by an apparent paradox, are about the only courses in 
the program of studies in which a definite time allowance is a — 
matter of principle. We can therefore say to ourselves in effect: — 
“Let us offer a course in drama for a semester or a termora year 
and establish as many effective contacts as are possible in that — 
time. Some pupils will establish many, some a few and perhaps 
some none at all, but so be it; that is the nature of the learning ~ 
product with which we have to deal.” As far as the individual | 
pupil is concerned, we can in principle assign no credit as a 
requisite for graduation. To do so is to set up an artificial goal 
which he will promptly commercialize. We can work with him ~ 


in various directions, trying now this method of approach and ~ 


now that. In general, if he makes an honest effort, we can be 
satisfied but we shall realize that the task of educating him in 


this field will be prolonged. If he refuses to make an honest ef- _ 


fort and we fail to induce him to do so, we shall probably decide — 
that he must take the course again. Appreciation implies effort. 
In the end, when the day comes to decide who has acquired a ; 
valid general education, the issue is not, “For what courses in _ 
literature has this pupil credit?” but rather, ““Does the evidence 
show that he has formed reliable and respectable tastes in his 
choice of reading?” 


TECHNIQUE IN LITERATURE COURSES 
In the science type, and in the other types to which we shall — 


presently turn, the objective and its mastery having once been 
identified, a somewhat definite routine of teaching is implied. — 


The procedure cannot be conceived as a cut-and-dried process, 4 


which, being followed, will always produce certain results with _ 


the determinism of the factory; but any essential departure — 
from the procedure will either result in non-mastery or uneco- 





COURSES IN LITERATURE 359 


nomical learning or a learning product other than what the ob- 
jective calls for. In courses in literature, no such definite pro- 
cedure is indicated. There are no units. There are no specific 
masteries capable of being listed in the program of studies; 
nothing, for instance, which corresponds to “The Quadratic 
Equation,” “How Plants and Animals Live,” “The Rule of the 
People,” “The French Revolution.” The objective is rather 
steady growth in the pupil’s sense of values and in the body of 
values which he incorporates into his life. Nevertheless, there 
are certain guiding principles which can be set up. 

First of all, much depends upon the arrangement of the 
classroom and the general conduct of the class period. There is 
little doubt that, purely as a matter of psychology, the comfort 
and attractiveness of the physical surroundings have a positive 
influence upon the individual’s emotional reactions. The ordi- 
nary classroom with its regularity of desks and chairs and its 
teacher always seated at a desk in front may not prove fatal to 
the reception of literary values, but in such rooms even the most 
inspiring teacher works at a disadvantage. The arrangement of 
one of the rooms in the University High School seems to be al- 
_ most ideal. On one side of the room is an unusually large mul- 
lioned window and on another a smaller window of the same 
type. The windows have broad window seats stretching across 
the width. Opposite the large window in a recess is a small 
stage, not an essential appointment by any means, but helpful. 
To the left of the stage looking toward the large window are two 
large tables arranged in the form of a T, and about these tables 
the teacher and perhaps twenty pupils can find seats. Up and 
_ down the middle of the tables are rows of the books to which ref- 
_ erence will be made and some of which will be used for reading. 

To the right of the stage, still looking toward the large window, 
is a group of student armchairs arranged about a teacher’s desk. 
On smaller tables are periodicals; and on the walls, bulletin 

boards bearing announcements of new books, book reviews, and 
the like. 7 


360 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


The selection of the pieces of literature for class reading and — 
discussion is of course the point of departure. When the teacher 
meets a section at the beginning of a course, he spends perhaps 
two or three class periods, with the pupils seated about the 
table, talking over with them reading in general—what they — 
have read and what they like. Ideally, he also surveys their 
reading records all the way back to the beginning of the sec- 
ondary period. In this fashion, he forms a rather shrewd notion 
of the reading tastes which have been formed. He is thus able 
to plan the present course intelligently. He selects the material 
for class use which he judges will best meet the situation, and he 
lays out his list of assigned reading. There is evidently here an 
analogy to the exploration step in the science type, the pre-test 
of the mastery formula. 

A suitable piece of literature is thus selected for the initial _ 
presentation. The teacher tells why he selects it, why he thinks _ 
it will interest the class, what it is all about, and something of 
the story, its message and meaning. In a word, he motivates the 
class. As is the case in all presentation especially, good control — 
technique is imperative. The teacher is sure of his material, 
sure of himself, and convinced of the value of the piece. Other- 


wise, he may as well give up trying to teach literature, for he 
will not succeed. He keeps at the task, turning from pupil to 


pupil until he senses that he has in some measure succeeded in 
registering the message. 
Part of the teacher’s presentation may well be the interpre- 


tive oral reading of certain passages. Such passages are read 


without attempt at elocutionary effect, but forcefully and in a 4 


manner calculated to bring out what the author intended to get 
in his vocal values. Incidentally, an essential part of the prep- — 


aration of a good teacher of literature is training in the art of — 


reading aloud. If the teacher really feels the values which he 


reads aloud, however, he will be pretty apt to read effectively. — 


There will be many opportunities, as the discussion of the piece _ 





COURSES IN LITERATURE 361 


goes on, when the teacher’s reading will help to establish appre- 
ciation. 

On the other hand, oral reading by the pupils themselves is 
an essential part of the process of awakening appreciation in 
many instances, and good oral reading for appreciation is hard 
to get, especially in the adolescent. The essence of the matter 
here is to avoid perfunctory reading. Perhaps the best plan is to 
call for volunteers to select passages for reading at the next 
meeting and to keep this process up from time to time until 
everybody has had his chance. Meantime, the piece as a whole 
has been read silently by the several pupils. 

It will not ordinarily be long after the teacher’s presenta- 
tion, in a class which is being conducted in a perfectly informal 
manner, before comments will be heard, and thus a discussion is 
precipitated. Now one of the most banal things in the world is a 
“class discussion” which has been planned and which is con- 
ducted in a cut-and-dried fashion. ‘“Tomorrow we shall have a 
class discussion; class dismissed.” The effect is disgust in the 
breasts of all but the lesson-learners, and they are proof against 
disgust. Purely spontaneous and natural discussion, however, 
opens many opportunities for the illumination which is the vital 
matter in awakening appreciation. 

In a poetry course, probably most pieces used for class study 
will be orally read not once but many times. In a drama course, 
the pieces used for class study will be read orally by individuals 
in part, read as dialogue in part, and some of them will be as- 
signed for dramatization. In prose courses, there will perhaps be 
very little reading aloud. Prose is not ordinarily written for that 
purpose. Nevertheless, certain passages frequently need to have 
their value brought out in that way. Parkman or Macaulay, 
which would probably not appear in a literature course at all, 
have many passages, indeed, which should be read aloud for the 
pure delight in the balanced and cadenced expression. 

At the most, only a few pieces in a literature course can be 
used for classroom study. Many others from the field with 


362 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


which the course deals are listed for silent reading. Now, not 
only is the selection of material for the silent-reading list im- 
portant, but the nature of the requirement itself is critical. If 
the teacher assigns a limited list and requires the reading of the 
entire list, the result will be simply perfunctory covering of 
ground. If he assigns a minimum number of readings, the result 
will be much the same; the short pieces will be found to be popu- 
lar. The appropriate procedure is to assign a sufficient list, to 
explain to the class its purpose, to get from them an honest effort 
in the light of a clear understanding on their part of what the 
purpose is, and then to guide and in some individual cases to 
constrain wisely. 

Some of the silent reading is done outside the class, but 
much of it is done in the classroom. There will be some days 
when the class period cannot well be used for group study, oth- 
ers when circumstances appear not to make group study profit- 
able, and others still when it is desirable to devote the whole 
period to silent reading. In any of these cases, a visit to the 
room which has been described will reveal a situation something 
like this. The group, as a whole, is absorbed in its reading. 
Some are gathered about the large study tables; others have 
taken chairs and selected places by one of the windows; several 
are curled up on the window seats. 

The appropriate result of the silent-reading periods and of 
out-of-class reading is the spontaneous contributions of individ- 
ual pupils touching their own reading. As the class gathers 
about the table again, these contributions are offered and discus- 
sion follows. In practice, it is very noticeable that such individ- 
ual reports operate as an effective “sales agency’ with other 
pupils. 

Each pupil keeps a card record of the books read, with such 
comments as he cares to make. If his comment is limited to “I 
liked this book pretty well,” the card is returned with the re- 
quest that he record the reasons why he liked it—or perhaps did 
not like it. Here, as in the free reading, the books of the reading 





COURSES IN LITERATURE 363 


lists not only supply assimilative material but the pupil’s record 
is the best evidential material we can get of the appearance of 
the true learning product, of his own growth in appreciation, or 
perhaps of his failure to grow. Table XIII, taken from a current 
work report, shows the use of the silent-reading record for the 
purpose last named. 














TABLE XIII* 

u mz | Iv u ii | Iv 
° ° 9 a I 2 
7 ° 12 4 re) 2 
3 ° ° 5 ° ° 
I I 3 6 ° ° 
I I 4 5 I fe) 

ii o ° 5 ° ° 
3 I ro) ° ° 2 
7 2 2 ° fe) 2 
4 1 I 6 ° 6 
9 2 0 3 ) 4 

No record 6 2 ii 
° ° 7 I I 2 
6 iS 2 3 fe) 2 
° ° 10 13 2 2 
8 3 I 25 3 7 
9 ° 2 —_— 

10 3 4 168 30 99 
5 K 9° 





*I = No. of books from the classroom table. 

II =No. of books of fiction read outside of class. 
Ill = No. in I which are of equal quality with I. 

IV =No. of newspapers and magazines read regularly. 


The pupils in this section are almost entirely children who 
have had no genuine background in good reading either in the 
elementary school or in the home. The record is more illuminat- 
ing when studied in connection with the following quotation 
from the report which is also evidential material of weight. 

For the first two weeks or more [of a twelve-week period] 
some were restless if their reading continued throughout the class pe- 
tiod. Their attention was easily caught by movements in the room 
or hall. The boys are for the most part at the rowdy stage of early 
adolescence and they were inclined to disturb each other. Toward the 
middle of the quarter a noticeable improvement was observed, and 


s 


364 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


toward the end of the quarter the attention during such periods was 
almost perfect. The pupils began to read at the opening of the hour 
without being called to order and some always stayed after the close 
of the hour as long as possible. 


An average of eight books in the field of the course were 
read during the quarter, seven of them during the silent-reading 
periods in class. That is a good beginning for the type of pupil 
background available. Of the five books read out of class (free 
reading), one was of as good quality as those read in the class- 
room. There is a beginning of transfer, of the building up of the 
true learning product. In the cases of Pupils 8, 10, 13, 15, 17, 
18, 29, 32, 33, there is evidence of actual effect of the course. In 
the cases of 1-3, 6, 12, 14, 16, 20-22, 24-28, 31, there is no such 
evidence, but in the cases of 2, 6, 12,16, 24, 31, the record shown 
in Column [is favorable. 

In a class of pupils, who are one and two years older in 
school, a similar record shows 65 per cent of the free reading to 
be of good or excellent quality. 

Literature is the English department’s content subject. We 
have seen at some length the importance and significance of 
English writing in the content subjects of the science type. Here, 
no less than there, the content of the course furnishes the foun- 
dation for practice in writing, and conversely writing tends to 
generate assimilation of the course content, so far as perception 
of meaning is a part of the learning product. Only, the writing 
must never be allowed to degenerate into perfunctory perform- 
ance. With the controlling principles in mind, the ingenious 
teacher will find many opportunities for productive writing 
suited to the needs of the different individual pupils. In general, 
however, three kinds stand out. Probably all pupils should have 
some experience with the first two and as many as possible with 
all three. 

The book review, adequately conceived, seems still to be a 
useful form of writing. Now the perfunctory review conceived 
chiefly as an exercise to enable the teacher “to be sure that the 


COURSES IN LITERATURE 365 


pupil has read the book”’ is of course worse than useless, and it 
has deservedly fallen into ill repute. Before setting the senior 
high school pupil, and sometimes a junior high school pupil, to 
the task, the teacher should explain to the class the nature of a 
good review and acquaint them with several instances. In fact, 
they should become accustomed to the use of book reviews, as a 
part of the work of every course in literature. The pupil should 
understand clearly that, before he undertakes to write his re- 
view, he should become thoroughly familiar with his book and 
not begin to write until he has reached the point at which he 
feels that he has something to say. Obviously, he should be al- 
lowed to select a book which seems promising to him. He will 
need a generous time allowance, not simply the admonition, 
“Write me a review of for tornorrow.” The review, when 
submitted, should be always a creditable piece of work, for con- 
tent, for composition, and for English usage. Re-writing one or 
more times, wholly or in part, may be needed. In the end, such 
reviews presented to the class contribute, not only to enlighten- 
ing the class as to the manner and method of such writing, but 
very often they contribute illumination of literary values and 
stimulate the other pupils to further reading. 

The character study, again properly conceived and carried 
out, is a serviceable instrument of study in a literature course. 
When conceived as a perfunctory exercise in which an immature 
pupil endeavors to grapple with a character development which 
is far beyond his capacity, of course the performance is a farce. 
A technique for developing character study has been carried out 
in the University High School, with seemingly productive re- 
sults, somewhat after the following manner. 

A pupil exhibits some intelligent interest in a character. 
Lady Macbeth, for instance, seems to possess a fascination for 
many high-school pupils. The teacher responds, ‘Very well; 
would you like to make a study?” The pupil is then warned 
that the task will require lots of hard thinking, that a series of 
paragraphs beginning “I think” will hardly do, and he or she is 





366 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


set to work. The pupil studies his problem and works up his suc- 
cessive points on a series of the ever useful 4 by 6 cards, citing 
passages. These cards are then submitted to the teacher who 
examines and criticizes the content and suggests lines of further 
study, probably in a silent-reading period. When the assembling 
of material seems to be sufficient, the pupil is allowed to begin 
writing. From that point forward, the technique corresponds to 
that used in the supervision of a book review. 

A third type of writing is one in which the pupil himself es- 
says some modest creative work. This type is of course especial- 
ly available in various forms of lyric poetry and in the short 
story. It could probably be developed to a considerable extent in 
many high schools, for there is a great deal more potential lit- 
erary talent among children than we are accustomed to think. 
Obviously, the purpose here is not primarily to develop such tal- 
ent as may be found but rather, first, to utilize some creative 


writing as one of the lines of access to appreciation; and, sec- 


ond, to further the process of training the pupil in the art of ex- 
pression. Experience seems to show that the pupil who himself 
essays the art of literary expression tends to acquire a new atti- 
tude toward the material which he reads. It is one of the several 
methods of productive study in the field of appreciation. 

The voluntary project. —In the appreciation type in general, 
and in courses in literature in particular, there are found indi- 
vidual differences among pupils just as such differences manifest 
themselves in all subjects. There are, on the whole, perhaps 
more such differences here than elsewhere, for, as we have seen, 
courses in appreciation cannot be made determinate as can 
courses in other types of teaching. Weare particularly concerned 
with pupils in whom appear intellectual interests in the type of 
material which they study and whose capacity for present 
growth goes far beyond anything of which others are now capa- 
ble. Hence, the voluntary project in teaching. Fruitful fields in 
which such projects may be found can be seen in the enumera- 
tion which follows. 





i 


eae ee 


COURSES IN LITERATURE 367 


On the whole, perhaps the most available is the study of 
some particular author as he is revealed in his works. Pupils at 
high-school and junior college levels are apt to find a special 
interest in the personality of a favorite author. If the interest is 
genuine, they tend to read his works for passages which seem to 
them to reveal him as they know him or think they know him. 
Such an undertaking will often enlist their interested study for 
weeks at a time, and the end of it all is a production which is 
usually a creditable piece of work. On the other hand, if the 
pupil is in reality seeking some commercialized reward for a vol- 
untary undertaking, either a superior mark or perhaps a reward 
at home, he is likely to confine himself to “reading up” about an 
author. He explores the pages of an encyclopedia and perhaps 
the introductions to the author’s works for biographical notes, 
and the result is the more or less perfunctory schoolboy “compo- 
sition” or “‘written paper.” 

A very common form of voluntary project is the extended 
attempt at literary production. Of course, pupils who have no 
discernible talent in this direction should be steered into other 
fields, but potential talent not infrequently does appear, and 
pupils who seem to possess it may well be encouraged. Some of 
the productions in the laboratory have been extended epics, 
plays, and in one case the libretto for an imaginary opera. 

Pupils whose bents are otherwise than these sometimes ex- 
hibit and express their interest either in practical-arts channels 
or in pictorial representation. Illustrations are found in the de- 
sign and arrangement of stage settings, including the electrical 
accessories, and in serious attempts at illustration in color. Some 
of the girls who have acquired an interest in costume from their 
domestic-arts courses utilize their attainments in studying the 
descriptions found in works of a given period and in preparing 
sets of sketches illustrating the period. 

Now and then a pupil is found whose interest is purely intel- 
lectual and whose voluntary project runs in the direction of his- 
torical study. 


368 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


Altogether, any subject will serve and any paper may be 
accepted provided there is evidence of genuine interest, serious 
and prolonged study, and painstaking endeavor to produce a 
worthy result. Pupils should not be allowed to feel that failure 
to undertake a voluntary project constitutes a reproach. Many 
of them will be fully occupied with projects in other subjects.* 


THE PROBLEM CASE 


After all, there are pupils even under the best of conditions 
with whom we seem to make little progress, and these become 
the problems for individual study. The difficulty may reside in 
causes which we have enumerated and discussed under the sci- 
ence type. Indeed, if the pupil is a problem in one or more 
science-type subjects as well as in literature, that is likely to be 
the case. On the other hand, he may be and frequently is a prob- 
lem in literature only. We do not seem to be able to reach him. 
In such cases, the cause is apt to lie somewhere within the field of 
the specific apperceptive mass. He does not respond to the 
course in literature, simply because he has an inadequate idea- 
tional and appreciative background. Corrective treatment con- 
sists in providing some basis from which contacts can be made. 
The case cited above (p. 341) was such. If the free reading has 
been adequately guided, such cases will be the less likely to ap- 
pear. Nevertheless, even when they do appear at a relatively 
advanced level in the secondary school, they can usuaily be set 
right. There comes to my mind a boy who is perhaps as obstinate 
a case as is likely to be encountered. Afflicted by an obscure and 
peculiarly mortifying physical malady, classed as ‘“dumb,” and 
more or less the butt of his fellow-pupils, his reading inclina- 
tions have scarcely passed out of the infantile stage. And yet 
after two years in general literature and patient and intelligent 
appeals on the part of his teachers, the work reports show a dis- 


* An excellent description in detail of the use of the voluntary project in lit- 
erature can be found in Miss McCoy’s article entitled “The Voluntary Project as 
a Measure of Appreciation in Third and Fourth Year English,” Studies in Sec- 
ondary Education, Vol. IL. Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, 


COURSES IN LITERATURE 369 


tinct awakening to the appeal of the materials of the course. 
Should such pupils receive “credit” for the course? Nowhere is 
this counting-house term so essentially meaningless and fraught 
with such mendacious implications. There should be no question 
of credit. Rather should the attitude of the school be, “Now, 
James, you seem to be ‘catching on’ and I think it will be worth 
your while to come back to me next year. Frank and Mary are 
going to take the course again and George Blank who you know 
is in the junior class is going to be with us.” “But, will I gradu- 
ate?” “Never mind graduation; that is a long way off yet. If 
you really try as you have this year, you will graduate all right, 
and you will be ready to graduate.” | 

Related to the defective apperceptive mass, as the factor ex- 
plaining many problem cases in appreciation, is the influence of 
the materialistic home and social group from which the pupil 
comes. The latter encounters a group opinion which is decidedly 
averse to anything which is under the suspicion of being “‘cul- 
ture.”” Comment on one such typical case recites that “ 
resents anything written more than five years ago in his obses- 
sion that it is not ‘up-to-date.’” The motivation lying behind 
this attitude in the home is probably what is sometimes called 
“inferiority compensation.” The parents who are acutely con- 
scious of their own actual achievements, usually in the field of 
easy money-making, are also conscious of inferiority in the so- 
cial scale. They do not fit the station to which they had supposed 
money was the ticket of admission. Vaguely conscious of the 
lack of something which they generalize as culture, they com- 
_ pensate by decrying everything which to them savors of culture. 
The child thus becomes adjusted to a perverse social standard. 
To him reading a classic falls in the same category with the inap- 
propriate use of one’s knife at table. “It isn’t done.” The cor- 
rective treatment here is discharge of the attitude by making the 
pupil conscious of its existence. When the right moment arrives, 
a conversation something like the following occurs. 





370 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


TracHeR: You do not seem to care for such books as ————. 
Now, most of the class seem to enjoy them. 

Purim: Oh, I hate all that stuff; it isn’t up to date! What do I 
care about something that was written a hundred years ago! These 
other kids are sissies and highbrows. John doesn’t like it any better 
than I do. 

TrAcHER: Frank likes it. Is he a highbrow [football player]? 
Judge Blank was talking to me about some of these books the other 
night. He and Mrs. Blank were reading [one of the books on the 
book table] when I called there. [The Blanks are much looked up 
to by the boy’s parents and he knows it.] 

Pupii: Oh, well. 

TEACHER: Now, William, I am going to tell you something that 
will surprise you. You really wish that you could enjoy these books. 
You don’t enjoy them because you won’t make the effort to. And so 
you comfort yourself by this cheap talk about being up to date. A 
great many people find something in the books, and that is why they 
are still printed. They were printed a hundred years before you were 
born, and they will still be printed a hundred years after you are dead. 


The conversation will probably sink in and bear fruit. If 
the home influence is still too strong, we shall try it again later 
on. Meantime, the teacher will feel his way with other books, 
perhaps better calculated to meet William’s case. 

Attacks on (1) general factors which produce problem 
cases; (2) the defective apperceptive mass; and (3) the adverse 
public opinion of the pupil’s social group will clear up most prob- 
lem cases. There remain obscure factors which must be sought 
in painstaking exploration of the case history, if corrective or 
remedial treatment is to be successfully applied. It may or may 
not be true that certain traits which operate as true instincts 
may stand permanently in the way. We do not know. We do 
know that there are numerous identifiable and removable ob- 
stacles which should claim the school’s attention. 

In bringing our consideration of English literature to its 
close, it is worth while to anticipate a later chapter (chap. xxv) 
and to point out that the foreign languages, both ancient and 





COURSES IN LITERATURE 371 


modern, have literatures of their own, which are available for 
the purpose of the appreciative development of the pupil. It is a 
pity to use Vergil and Cicero or Goethe or Victor Hugo as mere 
exercises in reading, for which they are ill adapted. They should 
be used, rather, for their proper educational purpose—the awak- 
ening in the pupil of new senses of value and the expansion of 
that stock of values which he acquires in the literature of his 
mother-tongue. 


ANALOGIES IN MUSIC AND OTHER ARTS 


Space does not permit the extended treatment of other sub- 
jects belonging to the appreciation type which we have given to 
literature. In the process of education they are not less impor- 
tant. Good reading is accessible at any time, and in the public 
libraries it is accessible to anybody. Good music in these days 
of mechanical players and the radio-telephone is only less ac- 
cessible. We have chosen literature as our type subject, both 
because it still, on the whole, furnishes the most accessible envi- 
ronmental contacts and because it has established its place in the 
school. 

In each, there is the foundation of abundant contact with 
the best the world has to offer which is adapted to the several 
levels of pupil maturity. In literature, we get this contact 
_ through the free reading. In music we get it through the pupil’s 
experience with music which has been committed to permanent 
form. In painting, architecture, and sculpture, we get it through 
representations in photographs, of which every school should 
have a liberal and growing stock. 

In courses set apart for learning in appreciation, the princi- 
_ ples which we have discussed in the case of literature apply to 
_ the other arts as well. They apply to the rationale of organizing 
and conducting courses as truly as do they apply to the tech- 
nique of teaching. 

In the latter, we should find in each course: (1) the princi- 
ple of exploratory testing and the selection of material best cal- 


- 


372 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


culated to come into apperceptive sequence with the pupil’s ex- 
isting level of appreciation; (2) the principle of illumination of 
the field at the hands of the competent teacher; (3) the principle 
of class discussion calculated to bring out the attitudes of the 
several pupils and to contribute to the group attitude the reac- 
tions of individuals; (4) the principle of individual reports on 
music heard or examples of art seen; (5) the principle of nota- 
tion of results by observation of unsupervised preferences of 
pupils; (6) the principle of voluntary projects; and, finally, (7) 
the principle of study of problem cases, and, so far as it is pos- 
sible, correction of the same. 





CHAPTER XXI 
RIGHT ATTITUDE TOWARD CONDUCT 


the present chapter we enter that field which used to be 
[ eucecca in the books which discussed discipline and 
school management. The task of developing right conduct 
was commonly felt and probably still is felt to belong peculiarly 
to the administration. Not so. The school in its influence upon 
the pupil is a unit. The primary duty of the school principal in 
this field is to organize and to direct the influence of the school. 
In a small school, he may in addition be the personnel officer 
who deals with problem cases in the field of conduct. But the 
problem of educating the pupil into the right adjustments to- 
ward his personal conduct is as much the task of every teacher 
as it is the task of the principal. It is an instance of teaching in 
the appreciation type. 

Attitude is emphasized rather than conduct. The adaptation 
or true learning product, here or elsewhere, is an attitude and 
not performance. It is true that we must seek in the child’s con- 
duct for the evidences of changing attitude, but we may have 
good conduct with no positive attitude at all. The confusion of 
conduct with attitude arises from the same kind of misappre- 
hension which we have found elsewhere in the confusion of 
classroom performance with learning. The good boy who never 
does wrong may be as truly the lesson-learner in conduct as his 
fellow who always scores high on the daily recitation but fails 
in application. Common experience, as well as the literature, is 
full of instances in which the typical well-behaved high-school 
boy, and high-school girl as well, have broken down badly after 
leaving home and the local school and entering upon the uncon- 
strained life of the college community. In other cases, those of 
most of our boys and girls we hope, right conduct stands for 


aia 


ca 


374 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


right attitude, just as their records of lessons well learned is 
found to correspond to the attitudes of intelligence, or the at- 
tainment of proficiency in certain arts, which such lessons are 
presumably calculated to bring forth. 

Right attitude, of course, appears as sense of duty, honor, 
courtesy, fair play, religious obligation, and willing o-edience to 
lawfully constituted authority. It is perhaps summed up in the 
expression, “inclination to do right because it is right,” entirely 
apart from hope of reward or fear of punishment. The result of 
normal and successful development in the pupil is adjustment to 
his obligations to the society about him and equally to the condi- 
tions of his own dignity and self-respect—in brief, good 
breeding. 

In our concern for the rights of society, whatever that rather 
nebulous term may mean, we are prone to forget the individual. 
We start life as individuals and we continue as such to the end. 
We can never escape ourselves. The normal child, healthy in 
body and mind, is launched upon his career possessed of a pro- 
tective trait which we call “self-esteem.” He would not be here 
had not his ancestors long ago developed the trait. Nearly all 
the qualities which we have listed above represent in one form 
or another the end results of series of adaptations through 
which the raw individualist, whom we meet as a child, is trans- 
formed into a social unit who has not in the process lost his self- 
hood. Self-esteem has become personal dignity. The satisfac- 
tion which once came through mere self-assertion now appears 
as self-respect for duty done, honor gratified, fair dealing ren- 
dered. And yet attainment of the level at which the most inti- 
mate service to self is rendered in the form of sense of duty, 
honor, courtesy, fair play, and willing obedience is the level at 
which the individual becomes a socialized being. He is valuable 
to society just in proportion as he is sure of himself. When we 
survey the long lists of problem cases in which pupil maladjust- 
ments have been subjected to study and analysis, our attention 
is attracted forcibly to the principle that, in dealing with the 





RIGHT ATTITUDE TOWARD CONDUCT 375 


child, the family or the school or the church frequently destroys 
all likelihood of the child’s growth into right attitude toward 
conduct by laying violent hands upon his natural self-esteem, 
the source out of which his ultimate personal freedom and per- 
sonal integrity grow. 

Right attitude toward conduct is of course the veritable 
foundation upon which any possible citizenship must be built. 
Out of regimented good conduct may, indeed, be produced the 
subject but not the citizen. 

At the risk of wearying the reader with repetition, it is per- 
haps well to call attention to other learning products which are 
related to right attitude toward conduct but which are neverthe- 
less pedagogically different matters. 

One thinks first of ethics as a body of principles applied to 
the interpretation of conduct. Why is this right and that wrong? 
Is this tradition which has become a canon of right conduct justi- 
fied in principle by rational inquiry and analysis? If the youth 
is not to pass out into life the mere slave of a moral code, he 
must acquire intelligent attitudes toward the canons of right 
conduct as well as right attitudes toward his obligations. He 
must be able to apply the test of systematic reasoning to the 
issue, Is this thing right or is it wrong? Furthermore, he must 
- become one of the group which is capable of following sane and 
wise leadership in the healthy evolution of the code and its adap- 
tation to new conditions. People have frequently experienced 
hideous injustice through the failure of custom to evolve rapidly 
enough to keep pace with the evolution of society. Nevertheless, 
an understanding attitude toward the moral order of the day is 
pedagogically a thing wholly different from the right attitude 
which rules conduct. To know what is right is one thing; to love 
right and hate wrong is quite another. In the one case, we have a 
learning product which is achieved through science-type pro- 
cedure; in the other, one which arises out of teaching in appre- 
ciation. 

Religion is essentially learning in the appreciation type, and 


376 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


it is of course intimately related to right attitude toward con- 
duct. Religion is, however, so likely to be lost in a maze of eccle- 
siasticism and the warfare of contending sects that the public 
school is prevented from including it in its program. Family and 
church often make it a process of pure regimentation and con- 
formity to a set of stereotyped formulas, with the result that no 
proper adaptation results. Again, it is hopelessly confounded 
with theology. Finally, the school, in its obsession for the science 
type, endeavors to teach by explaining everything, from the 
spelling lesson to the youth’s ventures in the field of romantic 
love. The result is that the young person ultimately gets into a 
situation in which he refuses to accept anything as having mean- 
ing for himself which cannot be rationalized. He is a mass of 
learning inhibitions of the appreciation type. | 

Now, from a very remote period, man has felt the presence 
of the infinite. He has sought a sense of values in which his own 
relation to the presence is expressed, in a hymn of his faith, in a 
majestic symphony, in an architectural monument, in a gracious 
liturgy. The end result is an adjustment in which he has found 
himself and has found peace. Obviously, it is an adjustment in 
the field of appreciation. 

On the other hand, man is curious about his religious expe- 
riences as he is curious about other experiences. He speculates 
on the nature of God. He investigates the psychology of reli- 
gious emotion. He studies the history of religion and its mani- 
festations at different stages of human culture and among differ- 
ent peoples. He considers ecclesiastic organization and polity. 
He examines religious documents. All of these activities are re- 
sponses to intellectual interest as distinguished from emotional 
experience. The products are a series of intelligent attitudes, 
but only in a secondary sense, if at all, emotional attitudes. 
Whether or not such studies belong to the field of general educa- 
tion at the secondary level is no part of our present inquiry. As 
far as the problem of teaching is concerned, the important issue 
is to note that they are studies about religion rather than devel- 


RIGHT ATTITUDE TOWARD CONDUCT 377 


opments of the pupil’s sense of values in religion and incorpora- 
tion of the latter into his attitudes toward conduct. 

The basis of right attitude toward conduct seems to be 
found in the normally developed and integrated personality— 
the individual who senses his place in the scheme of things, ac- 
cepts the results, and has become capable of self-control and 
self-direction. Where shall we find the elements? 

There has grown up in recent years a respectable body of 
literature dealing with the study of maladjusted young people. 
A large proportion of the case studies which constitute this lit- 
erature, it is true, have grown out of court experiences and the 
records of institutions maintained for the treatment of personal 
maladjustments which have passed into the field of actual ab- 
normality. Nevertheless, there remains a great body of material 
which deals with the maladjusted child who has not become a 
delinquent in the legal sense and has not passed over into a state 
of positive abnormality. These are the educational cases. As we 
survey this literature, certain characteristics of the maladjusted 
appear with marked frequency. We cannot doubt that the cor- 
responding positive adjustments stand in great part for the nor- 
mal, integrated personality which is the basis of right attitude. 

1. Deferred satisfactions —One of the most striking differ- 
ences between the savage and the civilized man is the capacity of 
the latter to postpone immediate trivial satisfaction in favor of 
greater satisfactions or in favor of the later avoidance of misery. 
The savage in the presence of an abundant food supply, unpro- 
tected by the blind instinct of some of the lower orders, delivers 
himself to a period of gluttony and, in the subsequent period of 
scarcity, starves. People who have reached a somewhat higher 
stage of human evolution have acquired a more favorable atti- 
tude; they store the products of seasons of plenty. The truly 
educated youth refrains from spending the product of his labor 
upon his present pleasure but rather saves for higher satisfac- 
tions in later years. The child who is born into the comparative 
luxury of most modern American homes, and the paternalistic 


378 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


oversight of the modern state, shows a marked tendency to re- 
vert toward the characteristics of his remote ancestors. He must 
have his pleasure and have it now. Reasoned with, his rejoinder 
is, “I know I want this thing; how do I know that I shall want 
something better later on?” Materialistic hedonism this, with a 
vengeance! The youth is lacking in one of the most primitive 
and fundamental adjustments, and the adjustment is one of 
right attitude and not one of intelligence. His response reveals 
acute intelligence as a matter of reasoning on the basis of expe- 
rience. The most his teacher can do is to sadly remark, “You 
will nevertheless find out too late that you are woefully mis- 
taken,” but the response makes little impression. With most 
such, learning is only through actual experience, and unhappily 
by the time experience is gathered it is often too late to mend. 
On the contrary, the native tendency to secure emotional equi- 
librium by various forms of compensation, the agreeable process 
of deluding one’s self, impels the adult spendthrift to charge his 
misfortunes to anything or anybody rather than to his own im- 
providence. 

The most hopeful single pedagogical instrument we have for 
the establishment of right attitude here, and typical of all ap- 
propriate technique, is the introduction of thrift teaching 
through the school savings bank from the earliest practicable 
point in the school life, supplemented at the high-school and col- 
lege level by the general sources from which right attitude is 
cultivated and which are discussed below. 

2. Altruism.—To enumerate here merely the virtue of un- 
selfishness would be to proclaim the obvious. The matter appar- 
ently goes deeper than that. Normally, the developing child 
evolves out of a profound egoism into an attitude in which such 
egoism seems to him contemptible if not repulsive. Prior to the 
adaptation, the world seems to exist for the sake of gratifying 
his desires. If his desires are not gratified, he can interpret the 
situation only as an incomprehensible injustice which he resents 
as vigorously as his own powers and the patience of the older 





RIGHT ATTITUDE TOWARD CONDUCT 379 


generation make possible. it apparently seems to him incongru- 
ous that he should put himself out, even in the slightest degree, 
for the convenience of others. Under normal upbringing, most 
children sooner or later pass into the normal adult attitude in 
which it seems as natural and as fitting to serve the convenience 
of others as to serve one’s own convenience. The thought that he 
has on occasion ruthlessly enforced his own convenience to the 
deprivation of others now causes an emotional reaction of shame. 
He has thus passed through the normal altruistic adaptation. 

Two forms of arrested development here are easily iden- 
tified. 

Cases are sometimes met in which the child has never ac- 
tually made the primary social adaptation. He has grown into 
adult life, arrested at the infantile stage, in which the all-suffi- 
cient explanation of desire seems to be “I want it.” The causa- 
tion which lies behind this type of arrest is typically an indul- 
gent and influential home, a relatively weak school, or at least a 
school which is unable to assert itself against the home, and a 
child who is physically able to become a bully. These cases of 
atrest at the infantile stage are pretty apt to become criminalis- 
tic in later adolescence. The attitude toward conduct apparently 
is, “Blank stands in my way. I hate him and will kill him; my 
father will see me through as he always has.”’ No question of 
right or justice or even fear of the consequences inhibits, for 
these things are no more parts of his attitude toward conduct 
than they were when he was a lusty three-year-old. One such 
case known to the author in its end result, and intimately stud- 
ied and reported by one of his students, has become a peniten- 
tiary case on a manslaughter conviction. The case history runs 
precisely true to the type which we have described, with the sin- 
gle exception that the boy would not have been able to play the 
role of bully but for the infatuated domination of the whole local 
situation by the masterful father. Cases of this type are apt to 
originate in what we commonly call the “respectable strata” in 
society. The young street bully of the slums, however, shows the 


380 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


same type of arrest, and we find him later as the gun-toting thug 
of the underworld. 

Much more frequently, of course, arrest takes place at the 
childish level. At that level, the child has learned to conform but 
he has not passed through the adaptation in which the attitude 
takes on the characteristics of genuine altruism. He has his own 
way regardless of the rights of others so long as he sees no rea- 
son to fear consequences unfavorable to himself. The end result 
is the profiteer—in commerce, in politics, in ordinary social in- 
tercourse, even in academic life. 

It seems to be important to emphasize the point that the 
altruistic attitude is the normal attitude in the mature individ- 
ual, at least in the civilized races, and that the crass egoism which 
we so often encounter is essentially a manifestation of arrest in 
personal development. A heavy survival value was long ages ago 
placed on the inheritance of the tendency to self-sacrifice. 
Otherwise, the lengthening period of infancy, and its basal sig- 
nificance in the evolution of the human individual, of the family, 
and of society in general, would have been impossible from the 
beginning. Hence, apart from freaks in genetic succession and 
the survival of unfit stocks, we all of us inherit tendencies which 
normally ripen into altruistic attitudes toward conduct. Only, 
in this case as in the cases of most instinctive tendencies, the in- 
dividual child must pass through the experiences which are cal- 
culated to set them in operation. The ordering of such experi- 
ence is the problem of teaching in the appreciation type in the 
school, in the community, and in the home. The wise and strong 
home, set in a wholesome community, and fortified by the wise 
and abundant school, leaves little chance for the typical arrest 
to take place. 3 

3. Sense of fair play.—intimately related to the altruistic 
adaptation, possibly an implication of it, and at any rate an ele- 
ment in right attitude toward conduct, is that foundation of jus- 
tice between man and man which we may call “sense of fair 
play.” At bottom, it seems to be willingness to accord to others 


RIGHT ATTITUDE TOWARD CONDUCT 381 


what is their own, to do as one would be done by. The attitude 
seems to appear in a crude form soon after the establishment of 
the primary social adaptation. Even the small boy finds it rea- 
sonable to proclaim, “That is not fair.”” The most he needs, ap- 
parently, is progressive refinement in his attitude and habitual 
application to widening sets of experiences. Only there must be 
present both guidance and enforcement. In brief, justice re- 
quires a judge who can interpret and apply and who is himself 
fair. It goes without saying that, as soon as the child becomes a 
member of a social group such as is found in the school, in- 
numerable occasions arise in which there is abundant assimila- 
tive experience. Especially is this true of the playground. But 
the pupil’s dawning sense of fair play is quickly aborted unless 
there is present the means of interpretation and enforcement. 
To set up a playground and complacently assume that the sense 
will rapidly evolve is like assigning lessons and expecting edu- 
cation to result. Without enforcement, the bully soon dominates 
and the pupil makes up his mind that being fair is not part of the 
scheme of things. He tends to become himself a bully, or a wire- 
puller, or a slave as circumstances decree. 

4. Beauty in the sex relationship—lIn the process of build- 
ing right attitude toward conduct, we encounter the problems 
presented by what the poets call the “master-passion.” A large 
percentage of the youthful conduct cases which come to the 
various clinics are related in one form or another to matters of 
sex. In dealing with such, we are prone to consider the sex-hy- 
giene aspect and perhaps the psychiatric problems involved and 
rest there. Perhaps that is the first thing and, it may be, the only 
_ thing to do with cases which have developed to a pathological 
end result. In neither aspect, however, do we get to the root of 
the matter as far as the educational problem of developing right 
attitude is concerned. 

As man has evolved from the lower stages of savagery, in 
which he differs little from the lower non-human forms—and 
that difference not always to his credit—he has tended constant- 


382 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


ly to intellectualize or rationalize those aspects of his environ- 
ment which are capable of being so treated and to sublimate or 
spiritualize those aspects which are incapable of rationalization. 
On the whole, the latter process seems to have been one of ad- 
justment in which successful adaptation had a marked survival 
value. Personality tended to evolve along that line. Food supply 
was more or less determinate and capable of rationalization. 
Man’s next most driving force was not susceptible of that form 
of adjustment. Accordingly, he endeavored to spiritualize it and 
to adopt the results into his most highly organized attitudes 
toward conduct. The Iroquois, for instance, surrounded the sex 
relationship with a code of superstitious sanctions, so much so 
that in the whole history of their fiendish treatment of captives 
there are few known instances of violation of females. Other 
primitive peoples founded religious rites on the instinct, and, al- 
beit the result seems often to have been beastly, nevertheless we 
note the characteristic tendency. Similarly, civilized man in 
his best periods has spiritualized the sex relationship, and the 
result has been some of the noblest cultural documents and mon- 
uments of the race. In his individual attitude he has surrounded 
it with what we commonly call “reverence and modesty.” 

We can then draw a contrast in attitude. On one side is an 
attitude in which the love of the sexes is felt as perhaps the su- 
preme manifestation of beauty, calling forth the emotional re- 
action of reverence. On the other, is an attitude in which at best 
it is viewed simply as a set of biological phenomena, containing 
certain warnings perhaps, and at the worst as a common and 
sordid thing, valuable chiefly as a source of physical satisfaction 
or of economic support. Which is the attitude of educated man- 
hood and womanhood there can be no manner of doubt. One at- 
titude belongs to man in what we recognize on other grounds to 
be his highest development; the other belongs to man in his most 
primitive savage condition. 

The objective here is, then, an attitude toward conduct in 
the normal boy and girl in which love is viewed as one of the 


RIGHT ATTITUDE TOWARD CONDUCT 383 


supreme aspects of beauty and not as a purely physical or at 
least materialistic piece of human experience. The outcome is 
not merely chaste conduct but, more than that, a contribution 
toward that complex which we call “normally developed per- 
sonality.”’ Chaste conduct is undoubtedly an essential piece of 
evidence touching the existence of the attitude, but so is mod- 
esty, taste in personal adornment, willing reverence toward wo- 
manhood in the man, exaction of respect for her womanhood in 
the girl, and refusal on her part to adopt masculine practices 
in conduct. 

5. Right acceptance of criticism—In the literature which 
deals with conduct cases, and in unpublished case studies, one 
very frequently meets with the verdict, ‘Cannot accept criti- 
cism; makes every criticism a personal matter.” In such in- 
stances, we encounter symptoms of arrest at an infantile or 
childish stage of self-esteem. The reaction is normal in the child, 
perhaps throughout the preadolescent period. His typical re- 
joinder is ‘“‘Good gracious, why are you always ‘picking on me’?”’ 
But he accepts criticism as the prerogative of the adult Olym- 
pians and, if it is firm and resolutely followed up, mends his 
ways and makes some progress toward the normal adaptation 
in attitude. It is apparently at this stage that the mischief is apt 
to be done by parental and pedagogical spoiling. Criticism is 
not followed up by insistence on right conduct. Even worse than 
spoiling, perhaps, is nagging. The parent or teacher fails to real- 
ize that the perverse attitude has its roots in natural self-esteem 
and persistently endeavors to incorporate in the child’s attitude 
what is after all little more than idle notions taken from the 
adult’s attitude. The latter is not content that the child shall do 
right; he prefers that the child shall do right in the adult’s way. © 


_ If continued into adolescence, we are very likely to get the defi- 





nite set against all criticism which is characteristic of the per- 
version. In the adolescent, the perverse attitude begins to be 
pathological and, if uncorrected as the youth matures physically 
and matures in his capacity for enforcement of his personality, 


384 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


he may easily pass into a state of permanent arrested develop- 
ment. This is the state described by the negligent parent when 
he helplessly remarks that his son “has got beyond him.” 

6. Acceptance of the value of co-operation.—In following 
out a series of histories, we encounter the note, “Will not take 
part in the group activities of the school; keeps by himself; will 
not co-operate.” The wise observer looks behind the charge, for 
when one grown person thus accuses another the accusation is 
apt to be an inversion of the facts. Nevertheless, the perversion 
is not uncommon, and of.course it is a critical fault in conduct 
attitude. Now, early in the kindergarten, in the period of infan- 
tile egoism, the normal child as a matter of fact does not play 
the game. Literally so, for it is hard to get him into the circle. 
But in due season he “joins up” and normally grows into the 
natural inclination to work with others. A pronounced non-co- 
operative attitude in later life therefore implies an arrest in de- 
velopment at the childish level, or else that something has caused 
a perversion. The normal teaching procedure is to check up on 
the development of the attitude in young children and see that 
all are put in the way of experiences which will lead to natural 
growth. Corrective work at this early stage is discovery and 
elimination of causes which are hindering development. If left 
to himself with no effort to check up and correct, the retarded 
pupil becomes a remedial case. 

In our consideration of this attitude, as well as of those 
previously discussed, we are not concerned primarily with an 
objective which is merely a social virtue. We are concerned 
with an element in right attitude toward conduct and in the de- 
velopment of normal personality. Right attitude here is an ele- 


ment in normal personality not merely because society requires — 


it, but because in the evolution of the individual in society it has 
of necessity become a trait of the normal individual. 

7. Fidelity to promises——A very common obstacle to the 
development of right attitude toward conduct is failure to sense 
the sanctity of a promise. In character analyses of conduct 


Se ee ee eee 


a ee a a ee ee 


ee ee ee 


Poa ~~ 3 





RIGHT ATTITUDE TOWARD CONDUCT 385 


problems, as well as learning problems, in the senior high school 
or junior college, we frequently meet the verdict, ‘‘Promises 
readily but never carries out a promise.” So does the young 
child in preschool years. In the latter, the trait is normal; the 
child has not yet come to sense that a promise is anything more 
than a verbal reaction calculated to satisfy present insistence. 
The vigilant parent sees to it that his infant not only promises 
but carries out his promise. The child soon comes to sense a 
connection between the promise and its fulfilment. More than 
that, he senses the imperative involved as a matter of self-re- 
spect; in other words, a promise comes to have sanctity. 

The youth or adult whose promise is a broken reed is usual- 
ly another case of childishness. He exhibits this fatal trait in 
character simply because he has never learned any better. He is 
the victim of neglect at home or at school or both. His case is in 
reality rather simple, providing he has not matured to the point 
at which he cannot be compelled to realize his promises. Treat- 
ment consists: first, in seeing that he does in fact carry out his 
promises; and, second, in convincing him of the essential in- 
feriority of the person whose promises are not entitled to re- 
spect. 

8. Obedience to constituted authority.—Lawlessness is so 
obvious and so fatal an ingredient of perverse attitude toward 
conduct that it would be trite to include it in our enumeration, 
were it not for the importance of noting the significance of obedi- 
ence as an element in the normal personality. 

Like most of the traits which constitute the latter, obedi- 
ence has an evolutionary significance. In other words, it is a 
_ form of racial adjustment. Even in the prehuman series, obedi- 
ence to the training of the mature generation has a survival val- 
ue. The cub fox who heeds the vixen’s constraint is likely to 
survive and contribute to the generation of other foxes like 
himself. His brother whose curiosity or greed leads him into 
devious pathways unsanctioned by parental approval experi- 
ences a short life and perhaps not altogether a merry one. The 


386 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


child of the present day who obeys is likely to survive; the child 
who does not obey is likely to perish early, under the wheels of a 
rushing automobile for instance. Obedience is then a trait in the 
normal personality, that is, the type of personality which is, 
other things being equal, adjusted to environment. Of course, 
obedience to constituted authority is the primary element in the 
ordered social group. 

Unquestioning obedience in the infant and young child is 
perhaps our best starting-point in breaking down the native ego- 
ism of childhood and the beginning of the process of building 
up the normal altruistic personality. As the years go on, how- 
ever, if obedience remains merely passive, the result is a simple 
performance ideal, no better and no worse than the learning in 
other types which achieves the passing grade in the daily lesson 
and contributes nothing to the pupil’s intelligence or to his spe- 
cial ability. Passive obedience should normally evolve into will- 
ing and intelligent obedience, in which the individual obeys his 
superior officer or the law of the land because it is right to obey 
whether he approves his orders or believes in the law or not. 
Perhaps the supreme adjustment is found in the youth who says 
to himself, “I shall respectfully protest this order or this law and 
then I shall yield to none in the fidelity with which I carry it 
out.” 

The attitude of adolescent or adult passive obedience and 
that of lawlessness and insubordination seem to be equally dis- 
orders of personality. 

Passive obedience is the attitude of the child and, if found 
in maturity, it is the attitude of the slave. We can feel nothing 


but contempt for the man who obeys the law because there is a © 
policeman close behind. He is not a free man. We may be very — 


sure, if we analyze his character, that we shall find a person who — 


is lacking in self-respect and personal dignity. 


In contrast with the servile type is the lawless individual ar- — 


rested at an infantile stage of development. He refuses to con- 
form to the requirements of social existence not merely because 


a 


RIGHT ATTITUDE TOWARD CONDUCT 387 


he is unwilling but because his defective personality makes it 
impossible. He senses his essential lack of self-respect and en- 
deavors to compensate by loud proclamation of what he calls his 
rights and by demagogic apostrophes of individual liberty. It is 
interesting to note that perhaps the most lawless decade in the 
last hundred years has been precisely the one which has been 
most distinguished by the degradation of democracy to the level 
of fetich worship. The hollowness of this individual’s “‘liberty”’ 
compensations can be seen in the principle that with rare excep- 
tions the victim becomes the most hateful of tyrants when he 
finds himself in a position of authority. 

9. Sustained application—capacity for hard work.—-We 
have met this element in right attitude in Part IT, where it is 
treated as an element in study capacity, and we have discussed 
there its relation to the problems of interest and of self-direc- 
tion. In its generalized form, it is of course an element in right 
attitude. We need do scarcely more here than call attention to 
its obvious conduct significance. We are not born with a dispo- 
sition to work hard; we have to acquire the attitude. In the end, 
the individual who has acquired the capacity has added an ele- 
ment to his own self-respect and in it he finds one of the high- 
ways to security and peace. 

10. Sense of duty.—In our survey of cases, we not infre- 
quently encounter a pupil who baffles us with his social graces. 
He cannot be called selfish, unless his very dislike of giving of- 
fense leads to essentially selfish acts. He is amenable. He has no 
vices. He is capable of hard work on occasion, but, all in all, he 
is a painfully negative factor in the life of the school. He is far 
from being a bad boy, but then he apparently has few inclina- 
tions in that direction. Taxed with such a question as “Why do 
you not take part in such and such an enterprise? You should 
do thus and so,” his response is apt to be “Why should I?” If 
he seldom does wrong, it is equally true that he seldom does 
right. He does not sense what the great German called the “cat- 
egorical imperative.” The word “duty” is not in his vocabulary. 


388 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


Explaining to him why he should undertake certain acts out of 
which he can expect no profit and no satisfaction, unless it be 
the satisfaction of duty done, is unconvincing because duty can- 
not be explained; it must be felt. The problem is essentially one 
of appreciation teaching and the technique is the awakening of 
the sense of duty much as the sense of value is awakened in a 
literature course. Very probably the center of the teaching will 
be the holding up of a mirror in which the pupil can see himself 
as other and valued associates see him and persistence in seeing 
that he performs at least one act which is motivated by some 
sense of duty, however feeble the latter may be. 

Other attitudes which constitute major elements in the in- 
tegrated and self-respecting personality might be added. We 
find the items of the list conspicuously in our cases, and we can 
be confident that they furnish a useful working analysis and list 
of objectives. In searching for others, we shall need to bear in 
mind two cautions. 

In the first place, it is very easy to mistake symptoms for 
attitude. Each of the list of ten has of course numberless mani- 
festations by which we know it, but such manifestations of an 
attitude are symptoms and not the attitude itself. 

Again, it is easy to mistake elements in native or acquired 


ability for conduct attitudes. For example, it is very easy to 


identify signs of leadership, or of adaptability and, since these 
are personal qualities, to set them down as attitudes toward con- 
duct. Not so; these are endowment traits in the individual 
which may prove important factors in taking on right attitudes 
——or hindrances, as the case may be—but they are clearly not 
the attitudes themselves. 

On the other hand, we not infrequently encounter individ- 
uals whose personalities have become warped to the point of 
profound emotional perversion. These people have become sub- 
jects for the psychiatrist, and are no longer pedagogical prob- 
lems. 


4 
i 
4 





ES RDP 


Dates 


= 





RIGHT ATTITUDE TOWARD CONDUCT 389 


TEACHING 


Teaching conforms to the principles underlying the appre- 
ciation type which have already been discussed. The reader 
should note that here, as in other pedagogical activities in this 
type, there is no determinate technique possible. In other types, 
procedure is determinate. Given a certain learning product, we 
can proceed to develop it in the pupil and success can be sooner 
or later achieved, except in a very small percentage of baffling 
problem cases. Not so in the appreciation type; not so in the 
development of right attitude. 

In attacking the teaching problem, we need at the outset to 
look for our sources of material which is capable of exerting an 
educative influence. 

First of all, then, we have the abiding literature of the race. 
Most literature which has survived the best-seller stage is the 
treasure-house of the aspirations of humanity. Therein is re- 
corded in one form or another the idealization of great conduct 
and scorn of baseness. Through right and effective contact with 
the literature of his race, the youth comes into his inheritance of 
the moral achievements of that vast multitude of witnesses who 
' stand behind the passing and often trivial influence of his fam- 
ily and contemporaries. The well-ordered school contributes 
that influence in its carefully selected and abundant free reading 
opportunities and in its skilfully conducted classes in literature 
and history. If the youth fails to enter upon his inheritance in 
the secondary period of his schooling, he embarks upon life 
equipped with only the ideals which his own age can furnish, 
and that is in any age a meager stock indeed. A nation recruited 
from such young people must forever be entering anew upon the 
long process of racial evolution. 

In the second place, we have the life-histories of men and 
women who have moved the race forward and who have fur- 
nished our best examples of noble conduct. The influence of the 
character of Lincoln in molding the attitude toward conduct in 
public affairs of men who came after him and who had really es- 


390 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


tablished an interest in his life has been incalculable. The influ- 
ence of the characters of Newton, Darwin, and Pasteur in mold- 
ing the attitudes of scientific men toward their professional 
conduct has been perhaps not less important than the intellec- 
tual contributions of these great minds to science itself. Unhap- 
pily, our stock of biographical material suited to the reading of 
children and young people is not as extensive as we could wish, 
and it is heavily unbalanced in the direction of exhibiting the 
characters of military and political heroes. Even in that field, 
the tendency has seemed to be to exalt the successful common- 
place rather than genuine nobility and genius. The failure of the 
southern confederacy, for instance, has thus far deprived us of 
several exceedingly valuable biographical contributions to our 
national capital of high endeavor and noble conduct. Religious 
and scientific intolerance likewise tend to waste the examples of 
a host of spiritual heroes. Nevertheless, there is still a great 
wealth of material to draw upon, and it should appear in abun- — 
dance upon the shelves of the reading-room; it should form an 
item in the guidance of children’s reading and, in some instances, 
particular biographies may well be made the subjects of the — 
class in literature. 

The third great source of examples of right attitude toward 
conduct is the teaching force itself. The influence of teachers, 
possessed themselves of simple nobility and strength of charac- — 
ter, is of course critical. It is an unhappy individual, indeed, who 
cannot look back to the lasting influence of at least one such. — 
Right attitude is at bottom a sense of value. If there is no value in 
the child’s environment to sense, it is futile to expect adjustment. © 
Outside of the family circle, the teaching force of necessity 
stands as the model which the older generation provides to the — 
younger. The requirement is at the least strength of character 
and maturity of personality. If the youth seldom comes in con- 
tact with these qualities in his teachers, society need expect no 
positive right attitudes in the rising generation. If the youth sel- 
dom encounters a teacher who is devoted to the teacher’s calling 





RIGHT ATTITUDE TOWARD CONDUCT 391 


as a permanent profession and who has matured to a stage es- 
sentially beyond that of himself, it is futile to expect that the 
youth will take on the attributes of social maturity. If the child 
is accustomed to meet in the classroom the pedagogical dema- 
gogue who maintains his position only by making himself popu- 
lar with immature pupils, we need not be surprised if the result 
is a citizenry which is incapable of being led except by the polit- 
ical demagogue. In the long run, by far the most influential fac- 
tor in the molding of the school child is the tone of the school, 
and positive tone is imparted chiefly by the faculty if at all. Un- 
happy the student who finds himself in an institution in which 
the tone of the institution is established by strong students 
rather than by a strong faculty. 

Closely related to the influence of the teaching force itself 
is the theory upon which the whole administrative technique of 
the school is carried out. We have already discussed fundamen- 
tals here. If we set up a passing grade based on relative perform- 
ance instead of focusing our test upon the mastery of correctly 
identified learning products, we need not be surprised if we gen- 
erate an attitude toward life in which “getting by” and superfi- 
ciality are conspicuous elements, and such we find in fact to be 
the revelation in a multitude of cases. If we appraise the prog- 
ress of pupils in terms of their performance on daily lessons, we 
need not be surprised if the outcome is an abiding attitude in 


which prestige is substituted for attainment, reputation for char- 


acter, and symptoms are valued rather than realities. Finally, 
if the child is accustomed from his earliest school days to judge 
himself by comparison with his neighbors rather than by com- 


_ parison of his present attainment with past attainment, it is 


likely that envy and malice, arrogance and servility, will come 
to be powerful elements in his attitude toward conduct. The 
end result tends to be arrested development in altruistic attitude, 
in right acceptance of criticism, in devotion to a social group, 
in fidelity to promises, in sense of duty. 


392 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


A fourth source of influence in the building of right attitude 
toward conduct is the intellectual adaptations which the pupil 
has already made. We cannot expect right attitude toward con- 
duct in a person who does not know what right conduct is. The 
individual who is essentially ignorant of the elementary princi- 
ples of contagion, for instance, cannot in this direction acquire 
right attitude, no matter how definitely he has matured into a 
general altruistic attitude. He carries a highly explosive cough 
into a crowded auditorium and infects large numbers of his fel- 
low-citizens simply because he knows no better. Another may 
have developed a sense of’social group obligation to the point of 
ultimate refinement and still remain a poor citizen, simply be- 
cause he has no intelligent attitude toward the civil institutions 
of his country. Another, still, who is essentially right minded 
may commit dishonest acts simply because he does not recognize 


the ethical significance of his acts. After all, here as elsewhere, _ 
the school is a unit and its influence as a whole has to be focused _ 
upon the pupil as an individual. While the school must be or- i 
ganized on the principle of differentiation of function, its several 


functions in the nature of the case have to be co-ordinated. 
While we are obliged pedagogically to utilize essentially differ- 
ent forms of technique in achieving different learning products, 
the influence of the school comes to nothing if the several de- 
partments of the school and its several functions attempt to op- 
erate as disparate enterprises. 

In contrast with the positive influences which can thus be 
organized and focused upon the development of right attitude 
in the school as a whole, there is what may be called ‘moral 
sanitation,” the elimination or correction of harmful influence. 


We first think of the harmful influences of vicious pupils, ~ 


especially in the high-school and junior college periods. We 


have to distinguish critically between the undeveloped pupil 


who is not yet positively vicious and who is still an appropriate 
object of general education and the pupil who has passed into 








RIGHT ATTITUDE TOWARD CONDUCT 393 


the field of legal delinquency—the thief, the inebriate, the 
youthful rake. Such individuals are instances of outright social 
pathology requiring separation from the school and treatment 
outside the school. We have no more right, nay, less right, to ex- 
pose the whole school to the infection of their presence than to 
expose the pupil body to the menace of-a case of scarlet fever 
or measles or diphtheria. They should be excluded and provided 
for, either in corrective institutions or through some other form 
of corrective treatment. 

We next note the baneful influence of perverse literature, 
with which we have already dealt at length more than once and 
which we need only to note here in passing. 

Finally, there is the ever present need of corrective influence 
directed to the school as a whole. We cannot censor the sensa- 
tional and often salacious newspaper and dramatic production, 
nor can we prevent the publication of shallow books calculated 
to destroy the student’s faith in God, his country, and his fellow- 
man. We have already shown how to some extent such influence 
can be counteracted in the free reading made available in the 
classroom in literature. It becomes further pre-eminently the 
task of the executive, if he is worthy of the name “educator,” to 
set the student body right. My mind goes back to my own col- 
lege days for an illustration. Thirty years ago, the press was less 
shameless than it is today and the drama had not yet conceived 
it to be art to wallow in filth for filth’s sake, but nevertheless 
then as now occurrences found their way into publicity which 
were well calculated to pervert the inquiring mind of youth. 
“They are all doing it” exerted its debasing suggestion as it al- 
ways does. But a great college president thought it to be his 
duty once a week to comment upon the news of the day and to 
set the student body right in its thinking. The influence upon 
right attitude was immediate, obvious, and observation in after- 
years shows it to have been on the whole permanent. 

The student-adviser system.—Systematic administration of 


304 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


the foregoing influences under a strong executive and at the 
hands of a competent faculty will hardly fail, even under rather 
adverse conditions, to develop a wholesome moral tone in the 
school. The great majority of the pupils will have acquired, or 
will be on the way to acquire, right attitude toward conduct. 
Furthermore, among the older and stronger and more influential 
pupils will arise a potential praetorian cohort capable of becom- 
ing an incalculably valuable factor in controlling and developing 
the school. There remains the need of intimate contact with the 
public opinion of the student body and of intensive work with 
individual pupils. The organization of the older and stronger 
members of the faculty into an advisory group is perhaps the 
first step. But such a group must be intelligent about its prob- 
lem, diligent, devoted, and it must work systematically. Other- 
wise it becomes simply a perfunctory paper organization. 

The reading-conference groups perhaps constitute a good 
beginning, and will continue to operate as a correlated enter- 
prise. Beside this system should, however, operate another in 
which perhaps not exceeding fifty pupils are assigned to each of 
several members of the faculty chosen for the purpose. These 
teachers have an hour set aside daily for meeting the individuals 
of their groups. Meeting not more than an average of five pupils 
daily, each member will get around his group about once in two 
weeks. Now two purposes are served. | 

First, much of the time taken with individual pupils will be 
utilized for guidance in their school work, planning courses and 
the like, and for gathering information which finds its way into 
the pupil’s case folder (see chap. xxxii). 

We are concerned here, however, particularly with the proc- 
ess of building up and generalizing right attitude toward con- 
duct in the individual and in the school. The process involves: 
(1) setting the individual right on sundry issues, and (2) col- 
lecting data touching the actual condition of school morale and 
identifying the corrective points. But the individual adviser 


| 
| 





. 


RIGHT ATTITUDE TOWARD CONDUCT 395 


working with his group has covered less than half the task. In 
modern personnel work, the staff conference under the guidance 
of the executive, or the chief personnel officer in a large school, 
is on the whole the crux of the enterprise. Here is the clearing- 
house of problems, both of the individual and of the school, here 
is the point at which intelligent forward policies emerge, and, 
perhaps most important of all, it is in the staff conference that 
evidential material touching the development of right conduct is 
gathered and evaluated. 


THE PROBLEM CASE 


Out of the reports of the student advisers and those of the 
classroom teachers emerge the conduct problem cases. The 
reader should of course distinguish here between the learning 
problem and the conduct problem. We deal under each type of 
teaching with the learning problems which are peculiar to that 
type. The conduct problem, pedagogically considered, is a 
learning problem under the appreciation type. 

The whole theory of teaching which is founded on the pass- 
ing grade and the philosophy of educational determinism tends 
to induce the school and the teacher to note these cases, identify 
them as bad boys or bad girls, and pass on with a sense of duty 
done. The obvious effect is a stream of maladjusted individuals 
who pass into society and contribute to the recruitment of our 
delinquent classes or, what is perhaps worse, to the immensely 
larger class of semi-delinquents who pass their lives skating on 
the thin ice which separates the sound footing of wholesome and 
right living from the black water of legal notice and punishment. 
These folks are perhaps, on the whole, a more pernicious influ- 
ence in society than the out-and-out criminal, just as the typhoid 
or diphtheria “carrier” contributes more to the ill health of the 
community than the identified and quarantined victim of dis- 
ease. 

A common routine dealing with such problems is a system of 


396 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


pains and penalties presumably adjusted to meet various de- 
grees of misdemeanor. For a minor fault, stay in at recess; for 
a greater, remain after school and write a word five hundred 
times; and so on up to expulsion. On the same principles, a poor 
lesson is awarded 70; a very poor lesson, 50; and no lesson at 
all, o. The trouble with this procedure is that it attacks the 
symptom and not the disease. 

The appropriate procedure conceived in a scientific spirit 
and from a valid educational point of view is to set up a regular 
organization equipped to deal with conduct cases by the case 
method of study and treatment. The essence of case method is 
analysis of the problem, study of the school, family and social 
background, identification of the causation at work, and carry- 
ing out a treatment calculated to remove or minimize the causes 
of the wrong attitude. An adequate discussion of the theory and 
practice of case work requires a volume. We find space for a 
chapter (see chap. xxxi). Suffice it here to set forth the outlines 
of procedure in dealing with conduct cases. Provided we have 
an abundance of data, gathered from the classroom, the advis- 
ory group, the home, and elsewhere, it is a comparatively simple 
matter to make a character analysis, sufficient for intelligent at- 
tack upon the problem. Such analysis will ordinarily disclose 
conspicuous defects in one or more of the attitudes which we 
have enumerated above as being of most frequent occurrence. 
Particularly shall we be likely to find evidences of arrested de- 
velopment of the sorts which we have described. 

The next step is to gather as full data as possible from the 
pupil’s out-of-school life, his school history, and his family his- 
tory. The diligent and skilful personnel worker will also bring 
into the picture various psychological, physical, and emotional 
data. If he has reason to suspect profound disturbances in one 
or more of these fields, he will endeavor to provide for the col- 
laboration of the proper specialist. In the end, the case worker 
can in most instances put his finger upon the causation which is 





RIGHT ATTITUDE TOWARD CONDUCT 397 


probably at work. He may find that there are inhibiting phys- 
ical, psychological, or emotional factors which should be elimi- 
nated if possible or at least kept constantly in mind. He is very 
likely to find that home conditions or the out-of-school life of the 
child are responsible—a nagging or negligent father, an indul- 
gent mother, vicious associates. He is likely to find that a bad 
school history has created learning problems which have trans- 
lated themselves into conduct problems. 

The causation having been identified, remedial measures are 
undertaken. It is very likely that the home life will have to be 
in some measure reconstructed. How are you going to do it? 
In many cases, perhaps in most cases, tactful and diplomatic 
representations on the part of the school accomplish the result, 
for after all most parents desire the best things for their chil- 
dren. In many other cases, the school makes connection with 
one or more social welfare agencies for the achievement of the 
desired end. Very probably, remedial work on the learning side 
to supply the school deficiencies will need to be set up. 

The remedial agencies appropriate to the removal of the 
causation having been set at work, in some cases the personnel 
worker can rest, feeling sure that the removal of the causation 
will restore to the pupil the right attitude. In other cases, per- 
haps in most cases, specific re-education of the appreciation 
type must also be undertaken. It would be assuming entirely too 
much to attempt to give specific directions for such retraining, 
good in all cases. After all, success will depend upon the tact, 
the patience, the ingenuity, and, above all, the resolution of the 
personnel worker. It is useful, however, to summarize the main 
lines of attack, and to note the principles which are after all ap- 
plicable to all such cases. 

In the first place, rapport must be established, sympathy on 
the part of the teacher and confidence on the part of the pupil. 
Second, the pupil must be made conscious, as acutely as possi- 
ble, of the nature of his defect. If the a alysis has been well 


308 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


done, the pupil will ordinarily readily come to see himself as 
others see him. Unless there is profound emotional disturbance, 
and, the author is inclined to think, rational perversions in the 
case of older pupils—that is to say, false attitude based upon in- 
tellectualized conviction that false attitude is right attitude or 
else that it does not matter anyway—the pupil will desire to 
remedy his fault. Third, a set of good resolutions which the pu- 
pil is capable of carrying out must be agreed upon and then the 
teacher must see to it that the pupil gets the experience of ac- 
tually carrying out his resolutions. 


TESTING 


The principle that unsupervised and unconstrained behavior 
is the only final test of a true learning product is of course sin- 
gularly applicable to right attitude toward conduct. We may in- 
deed set up extended tests in the form, “What would you do in 
such and such a situation?” Incorrect responses may reveal 
failure to sense the meaning of the questions and they may re- 
veal that the pupil is ignorant of what right attitude should be. 
_ Right responses, on the other hand, give us evidence that the 
pupil knows what right attitude should be, but they give us no 
evidence of attitude itself. Young people, like the rest of us, are 
prone to see the better course and approve, but follow the worse. 
Nevertheless, pupils are under observation in the school for five 
or six hours daily and their out-of-school lives are more or less 
within the observation of teachers and the personnel staff. In 
other words, a fair sampling of their conduct is under observa- 
tion, and that conduct is full of evidences of the nature of their 
attitudes. 

It is futile to think that a routine of scoring can be adopted 
through which there will pass periodically to the principal’s desk 
a mathematical representation of each pupil’s attitude. Attitude 
is not susceptible to that kind of description. Nevertheless, 
through the teacher’s personnel cards, and through the advis- 





Pa 


RIGHT ATTITUDE TOWARD CONDUCT 399 


ory-staff conferences, there does grow up a very satisfactory pic- 
ture of each pupil. Periodically, perhaps twice a year, the entire 
school can be canvassed in terms of the practical question, Can 
this pupil and this be trusted with respect to this or that particu- 
lar attitude? Such a canvass will normally yield something like 
the following distribution: 


I. For a pupils, the answer is positively “Yes.” 
II. For 5 pupils, the answer is positively “Not yet.” 
III. For c pupils, the answer is ‘“‘No evidence, either one way or the 
other.” 


IV. For d pupils, the answer is “Clear problem case.” 


Now the tendency at first will be to include under I both 
those who properly belong under I and the negative but well- 
behaved individuals who properly belong under III. Not so; 
the decision should be on the evidence. If there is no evidence 
justifying the I classification, then the pupil should be classed 
III, unless indeed there is evidence which places him in II or IV. 
In the elementary school, the early part of the secondary period, 
there will normally be few who really classify under I, but there 
may be a few. There will be a great many who classify under IT 
and III and perhaps a very considerable number who classify 
under IV. While we are happy to get the I pupils, the presence 
of large numbers of III at this level probably means that the 
majority are simply developing in a normal fashion and at the 
senior high school or junior college level they will appear in 
Class I. 

As we go on into the junior and senior high school and junior 
college levels, while there will be some fluctuations, as individ- 
uals previously in III class transfer for a time to II or even IV, 
on the whole Class I will steadily expand. In the end, let us say 
toward high-school graduation day, or the completion of the 
junior college course, the distribution should show something 


like the following: 


40c THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


We know that the great majority can be trusted, that is, that 
they have attained right attitude toward conduct. We know that 
a certain few cannot be trusted. As to some others, we do not 
know whether they can be trusted or not, but this group should 
be held to be evidence of culpable failure on the part of the 
school. A school which has ministered to the needs of a pupil for 
four years or longer and still does not know him well enough to 
pass judgment on his character is colorless indeed. 





CHAPTER XXII 
THE PRACTICAL ARTS IN GENERAL EDUCATION 


\ , YE have to do in the present chapter with a body of 
material which has found its way into the school cur- 
riculum, largely in the last half-century and largely in 
response to pressure exerted on the school compelling the latter 
to become an instrumentality for social adjustment. We are 
concerned with such material because it calls for a specific type 
of teaching, and we shall find it hard to understand teaching un- 
less we can frame a reasonable theory of the nature of the ob- 
jectives sought and of their place in the process of general edu- 
cation. 

As a type of teaching procedure, we have to do with proc- 
esses which involve the manipulation of physical material or the 
intelligent operation of appliances. Pedagogically, the type 
stands between the science and appreciation types, in which the 
learning process is essentially a matter of reflection or of con- 
templation, and the language-arts and pure-practice types, in 
which adaptation is entirely a matter of learning by doing. In 
the practical-arts type, learning is both a process of reflection 
and of learning by doing. Among the subjects commonly found 
in the school which belong to the type are shop work of various 
kinds; domestic-arts courses in cooking, sewing, dressmaking; 
accounting and office practice; drawing, both mechanical and 
free-hand; modeling, designing, etc. 

This volume is confined to the teaching processes which be- 
long to the field of general education. The practical arts as they 
are found in American schools are prevailingly in the various 
special vocational fields. The legitimate objectives in general 
education are materially different from those which are essential 
in the vocational field. In the former, intelligent attitude bulks 


401 


402 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


large but respectable skill in manipulation is not ignored; in the 
latter, special craftsmanship and skill of manipulation are of the 
essence of the learning but intelligence as opposed to rule-of- 
thumb is an element in genuine craftsmanship. Any educational 
policy, however, which meets the test of adjustment to environ- 
ment, must provide a region of contacts which can be achieved 
only through the utilization of the practical arts in the field of 
general education. 

Life in the modern world is placed in an industrial and me- 
chanical setting. It is life none the less, and as such is subject to 
the same fundamental controls as life in any age. But successful 
life and the wholly sane personality alike depend upon adjust- 
ment to the existing environment. When society as a whole lives 
in a state of passive acceptance of the world as it finds it, we 
note that condition of prevalent ignorance which is perhaps the 
greatest enemy of the human race. We can imagine the Lords of 
Life looking down on humanity and declaring, “You asked for — 
freedom from the blind instinct of the lower animals and we 
gave it to you; if you would now survive, you must learn.” Ad- 
justment to environment means not only understanding and ac- 
ceptance of natural law, but control of environmental forces, not 
only individual control but social control. 

Granted all this, the reader may say, Does not man through 
his specialists understand the world as never before? Doubtless 
that is true, but it does not suffice for the specialist to under- 
stand. The specialist discovers and invents but he does not con- 
trol in the social sense. The group mind does that or fails to do 
it. The group mind controls wisely or ill or not at all in propor- 
tion as the mass of individuals in society are possessed of intelli- — 
gent attitude. We might illustrate far beyond what the space — 
available will permit. A single instance will perhaps suffice. 

One of the outstanding problems created by the Machine is 
that of the great industrial city. The inhabitants of such live in 
an atmosphere impregnated with all the essences of the pit. 
They find it difficult to dispose of their waste products. Their — 





PRACTICAL ARTS IN GENERAL EDUCATION —§ 403 


drinking water is apt to suggest the chemical laboratory rather 
than the mountain spring. Their food, like most of their living, 
is conceived in the factory and born in artificiality. Their dwell- 
ing places are a reversion to the pueblo stage. Few people would 
choose that kind of existence, certainly not if they had been fa- 
miliar with better things, but they are caught in the toils of the 
Machine. All but a few are possessed of normal mentality but 
only a very few are possessed of the specific intelligence required 
by the situation. The specialist works out a remedial step and 
refers it to a popular referendum. The proposal meets with an 
overwhelming “No,” for the group mind is possessed of the ter- 
ror of primitive man. It does not understand and, not under- 
standing, declines to move from present discomfort into a prom- 
ised land it knows not of. The situation changes slowly if at all, 
simply because there is not enough specific intelligence in the 
community to create the demand which would sweep away all 
obstacles to sane and well-ordered life. 

Now there are many factors in the problem of the great city 
but the outstanding problem of all is the great city itself, and 
there the factors reduce in the main to two, transportation and 
the generation and transmission of energy in the form of electric 
current. There will never be “alabaster cities” on the continent 
so long as the local consumption of soft coal is the principal 
source of energy. ‘“These things are well known to engineers,”’ 
responds the specialist, “but the solution is not commercially 
possible on a large scale.” Ah yes, and “commercially possible” 
is only another expression for intelligent demand. Suppose every 
graduate of the high schools of the United States for the next 
ten years were to be made thoroughly intelligent in the layman’s 
sense concerning the practical-arts problems involved, can we 
doubt that the public attitude of passive acceptance would be 
severely shaken? We should, in the first place, create an atti- 
tude which would greatly stimulate invention and in the second 
place probably uncover a great deal of latent inventive genius 


404 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


which now goes to waste. And we have a basis for more than 
conjecture in this assertion. 

From the time when the automobile first became a workable 
machine to the time when it became available to practically 
every second family in the United States in a state of highly de- 
veloped mechanical excellence, a period of less than a quarter- 
century was required. Demand not only called forth rapid me- 
chanical development but it made the device commercially pos- 
sible indeed. But the automobile once on the streets was ob- 
vious. It appealed strongly to the natural inclinations of all. An 
educated intelligence was not required for the generation of a 
desire to own a car. 

Perhaps an even better illustration of the same type is the 
principle of wireless transmission and its applications. Most of 
these mechanical marvels which are so obvious in their appeals 
do little to solve the fundamental problems of society. Rather 
are they accretions to the dominating and uncomprehended Ma- 
chine. The automobile has created at least as many new prob- 
lems as it has solved. Intelligent attitude widely diffused among 
the masses of society, acquired only through the laborious and 
rather slow education of the individual, is assuredly the only 
pathway into a world in which man rules the Machine which he 
has created. One essential element in comprehension of the Ma- 
chine is the understanding of machines. 

The objective in the practical-arts type of teaching is then 
much the same as in the science type. The learning process and 
teaching procedure are necessarily different. The similarities 
and differences can perhaps be made clear by comparison of a 
learning product which belongs to the science type with one 
which belongs to practical arts. We may compare, for instance, 
the Industrial Revolution with the-gas engine. 

In the former, the learner contemplates a set of historical 
facts which when brought together and understood lead to a 
new point of view, an intellectual product which becomes thence- 
forth a means of interpreting the past and correctly understand- 


PRACTICAL ARTS IN GENERAL EDUCATION = 405 


ing the world in which he lives. The learner can get no concrete 
experience with the Industrial Revolution; he cannot go back 
and live through the period in which there was brought about the 
transformation from industry which was carried on in the home 
to that which came to be assembled in the factory. Indeed, it 
may be doubted that the learner would profit even if he could do 
so. It is doubtful if the men who lived in the period in which the 
transformation was taking place had any such clear comprehen- 
sion of the process as is possible today. Nevertheless, by read- 
ing, study, and reflection the student attains the intelligent atti- 
tude sought. In this particular unit he also makes some progress 
toward understanding the industrial and mechanical world in 
which he lives. 

Not so with the gas-engine unit. Here physical contact and 
manipulation are requisite to the adaptation required. True, we 
may take a book and familiarize ourselves with “the principles” 
or we may listen more or less appreciatively to a verbal exposi- 
tion, but in the end we have no realization. The learning product 
is part of the junk of things remembered but not felt. Practical- 
arts assimilation requires more than elucidation of principles. 
In the Industrial Revolution, a wealth of book assimilative ma- 
terial is possible. There is an ample region in which reflection 
and assimilation can take place. In the gas engine or any other 
practical-arts unit, however, the amount of genuine assimilative 
material which can be written is extremely limited. A few pages 
at most, with drawings of details of construction, is all that any 
writer can possibly put forth without becoming, on the one hand, 
verbose, or, on the other, passing into the field of engineering 
technicalities. There cannot be organized assimilative material 
enough without contact with the appliance itself. Even if we 
have a good apperceptive background, as we read descriptions 
of the mechanism and its working, an emotional stress is gen- 
erated in which one says to himself, “I must see the machine; 
take it apart; put it together again; see how it works.” Any 
reader who has been through the experience, first of trying to 


406 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


understand from drawings and description and then of “seeing — 
how it works” from actual contact, can bear witness to the men- 
tal experiences involved and to the reality of the assimilation 
from actual contact. 

What, then, are the units for general education in the field 
which thus belongs to the practical arts, or at least what are the 
principles upon which units can be set up? The principle which — 
we have already established for the identification of the unit in 
the science type will serve, namely, “‘A comprehensive and sig- 
nificant aspect of the environment.” May we illustrate. 

The steam engine with its boiler is a comprehensive and sig- — 
nificant aspect of the environment. It covers the locomotive, the 
marine engine, the stationary engine used for driving machinery, 
the steam pump. If we were to set up each of these types of 
steam engines as units for study, we should gain little in the 
form of intelligent attitude not obtainable in the study of the 
more generalized unit, and we should use an amount of time and 
energy wholly disproportioned to the possible educational re- 
sults. We should be attempting to give a course in steam en- 
gineering instead of developing the practical-arts unit, ‘The 
Steam Engine.” On these principles both the gas engine and the 
automobile are evidently units in the practical-arts field. So is 
the electric generator and the electric motor, the water turbine, 
the transmission of power. The heating, lighting, and water sup- 
ply of residences are units, and so is the disposal of waste, both 
for the residence and for the community. 

Among the processes as distinguished from appliances out 
of which units can be organized are the following: processes in- 
volved in the ordinary manipulation of wood, metals, glass, and 
concrete; processes involved in installing the simpler electrical 
appliances and the ordinary repairs to house and furniture; 
processes involved in the selection and preparation of food; — 
processes involved in the construction of wearing apparel. | 

Of course the field of agriculture has within it numerous 
processes which belong to the field of practical-arts teaching, 





PRACTICAL ARTS IN GENERAL EDUCATION 407 


and the field itself to a great extent is distinctly one which be- 
longs in this region of general education. 

The foregoing paragraphs will serve to exhibit the nature of 
the practical-arts unit. They do not purport to be a complete 
curriculum analysis. Whatever the units selected in the organ- 
ization of the course of study may be, the educational end in 
view is an individual whose attitude toward the mechanical and 
industrial world is one of comprehension and understanding and 
not one of passive acceptance. 

The reader wiil doubtless reflect that some of the types of 
units suggested in the foregoing enumeration are found to some 
extent in elementary-science courses and others are vaguely fa- 
miliar as exercises in manual training. Certain principles seem 
to be involved which are worth considering. 

Contrast with science-course content.—It is true that we 
commonly find in science textbooks paragraphs and several in- 
teresting pictures devoted to the steam engine, the gas engine, 


and their applications, usually in connection with the topic 


“Heat.” The writer has yet to find a text in which the explana- 
tions are clear enough to communicate to the pupil any real un- 
derstanding of these important appliances unless perchance he 


has already become familiar with them under working condi- 


tions. The reason why they are introduced is usually the plea 
that it is essential that the laws of heat should be applied to the 
everyday life about us, and of course the point in itself is well 
taken. Note, however, that the learning product in the science 
course is an understanding of the phenomena of heat and not of 
the steam engine or the gas engine. These appliances may con- 
stitute valuable and even essential assimilative material, but, if 
they are made objectives in themselves, the whole assimilation 


‘period is more or less thrown out of focus. The situation is anal- 


ogous to that in which clock problems are used for assimilative 
material in equations in algebra. The pupil has to learn how to 
manage clock problems before he can use them for assimilative 
material. It is an instance of the old story of mistaking the as- 


408 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


similative material for the learning product. The effect is un- — 
duly to prolong the mastery of the unit and to confuse the pupil. — 
Now the essential value of these engines as assimilative material — 
on heat is found in their utilization of the expansive force of 
gases when heated. For this purpose, a simple diagram which ex- | 
hibits the principle at work will serve and serve clearly, without — 
going into the study of the working of the appliances as such. 

The same principle of the proper use of assimilative mate-— 
rial in science courses applies to the various forms of water 
wheels, to the steam pump, to the electric generator, motor, etc. . 
It also applies to the telephone, telegraph, and radio. 4 

On the other hand, a competent understanding of all these ~ 
machines themselves is desirable, but it properly belongs to an- — 
other course and to another type of teaching, namely, that with © 
which we are now concerned. If, however, no practical-arts 
course has been arranged and it is still felt to be desirable to deal - 
with the various appliances in general-science courses, lest they - 
be passed over altogether, then separate units should be devoted 
to them, and these units should receive abundant treatment. — 
The unit “Electrical Communication” found in the elementary- 
science course (see chap. xi) and the presentation of this unit 
exhibited at length in chapter xv will illustrate. | 

On the other hand, practical arts may easily be confused 
with manual training, and it frequently is so confused. 

Contrast with manual training —Manual training, as the 
term clearly implies, has for its objective the development of © 
purposeful sets of neuro-muscular co-ordinations which seem to 
have played a valuable part in racial evolution and to have an 
essential place in the evolution of the individual. Handwork 
leading to the manual-training objective has an important place” 
in the primary school, and it should continue to have an im- 
portant place until the pupil’s co-ordinations have been thor- 
oughly established. Much of the appropriate practical-arts tech- 
nique may be used, and courses which have primarily a practi- 
cal-arts purpose in the secondary period may have also a 











PRACTICAL ARTS IN GENERAL EDUCATION § 4o9 


manual-training effect, but for purposes of clear educational 
thinking the practical-arts and manual-training objectives and 
purposes should be kept distinct in the educator’s mind. 

The author will perhaps be pardoned if he digresses in this 
connection into a plea for a renewed interest in manual training 
proper. 

In the urban life of our time, and to an increasing extent in 
the rural life, there is little room for the neuro-muscular devel- 
opment which used to be taken as a matter of course. The result 
seems to be a marked increase in the number of children who 
exhibit imperfect co-ordination and control. One effect can be 
seen in the increasing difficulty of getting good permanent re- 
sults in the handwriting skills. In days when handwork of all 
sorts was the common lot and when the family chore and odd job 
was an unnoticed but very important educational instrumental- 
ity, manual training took place in the normal experience of most 


children. It is a far cry from that child life to the child life of 


today, when mechanical appliances and provision for family 
tasks outside the home have little by little robbed the child of an 
important part of his educational foundation. There seems to be 
no recourse but to bring into the school what was once in the 


home, not as a perfunctory matter of a period or two a week but 


as a daily experience covering many school years. 

There is, however, in this plea no justification for a school 
policy which would make all work which involves manipulation 
of appliances and materials simply a prolonged course in manual . 
training. 

Contrast with vocational courses.—Finally, the practical 
arts in general education have objectives which are different 
from those of the practical arts in vocational education, and to 
some extent they require a different teaching procedure. In 
general education we seek only the intelligent attitude which the 
layman should have; in vocational education we seek crafts- 
manship and trade intelligence and proficiency. In most if not 
all vocations, the practical-arts aspect is but one of many, for 


410 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


the intelligent practice of a given trade requires knowledge of 
trade circumstances as well as operative skill in its manipula- 
tions. Proficiency in the latter requires not only intelligent atti- 
tude but skill which is the result of special intensive training. In 
general education we are concerned primarily with the develop- 
ment of an individual pupil and hardly in a secondary sense 
even with the quality of the material product turned out in the 
shops. In vocational education, we are still concerned, or should 
be, with the development of the human individual, but we are 
also concerned with the quality of the output he becomes capa- 
ble of producing. Altogether, schools frequently fail to draw the 
line critically between practical-arts courses which are intended 
to serve the purposes of general education and those which are 
presumed to achieve a vocational product. The result is waste of 
time, energy, and educational efficiency when only a result in 
general education is sought, and complete failure to achieve a 
valuable trade proficiency if the end is a vocational one. An il- — 
lustration may be found in the courses in mechanical drawing 
which are so commonly found in the high school. 

In these courses, a long time, perhaps two or three weeks, is 
sometimes spent in lettering, and then the pupils devote many 
weeks to exercises in drafting plans for various forms of con- 
struction which mean nothing to them so far as practical expe- 
rience is concerned. Of course we have here another illustration — 
of the ground-to-be-covered and daily-exercise stereotypes. It — 
is hoped that a year, or two years, of this sort of practice will 
yield some educational product, we know not what or how. We 
have what is essentially a vocational course but without regard 
to any specific vocational product. Training in drawing is given, — 
but not the use of drawing for the pictorial representation of — 
specific aspects of the practical-arts environment or of specific — 
vocational projects. The learning products are not identified 
and segregated, and actual learning is consequently a matter of — 
chance. 

Now, in the field of general education, mechanical and free- 





PRACTICAL ARTS IN GENERAL EDUCATION 411 


hand drawing are valuable tools in interpreting and expressing 
and consequently assimilating various experiences found in the 
practical-arts environment. There are few people, indeed, who 
_ do not have occasion frequently to seize a pencil and attempt to 
explain a structure or a mechanism in which they are interested. 
Their representations are usually crude and in effect their ideas 
correspondingly nebulous. Drawing stands to the practical arts 
very much in the same relationship which written expression 
bears to the content of the science and appreciation types. In 
either case, expression is the instrument which we use in the 
clarification of our ideas. Hence, in general education both 
forms of drawing are emphatically expressional tools, as neces- 
sary to the mastery of many practical-arts units as mathematics 
is necessary to the assimilation of physics units and as English 
writing is necessary to the mastery of all units in which the ob- 
_ jective is intelligent attitude. Furthermore, the adult individual, 
in the presence of his mechanical and industrial environment, 
has occasion frequently to read working drawings. He would 
have occasion to do so more often if he only had the ability. 
We are thus enabled to form a working notion of the appro- 
priate scope of the drawing courses in the field of general educa- 
tion. We need, in the first place, a set of learning products which 
_ will enable the individual to express graphically the gross as- 
pects of the practical-arts experience of his daily intercourse. 
These learning products do not include the specialized opera- 
tions which the individual can confidently leave to the technician 
nor do they include the skills which are essential to the profes- 
sional draftsman. The learning products thus understood, sim- 
plified, and segregated are relatively few in number. In the sec- 
ond place, we need a series of exercises which will develop and 
_ test out the ability to read working drawings. It does not follow 
_that mastery of the first set of learning products will carry with 
it mastery of the second set. It will undoubtedly do so in the 
cases of certain pupils, but to take the development of the sec- 
ond set for granted is to fall back on the principle of chance. 


412 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


The one does not imply the other any more than proficiency in 
oral reading implies the reading adaptation. 

In vocational training, on the other hand, we have two 
classes of objectives which must be borne in mind. 

In the first place, workers in many fields require only the 
general-education learning products while others require these 
in the form of further special application to their own vocational 
field—auto mechanics, for instance. 

In the second place is training in draftsmanship itself, in its 
various fields, as a vocation. If we desire to produce a draftsman 
who is something more than a mere copyist, we must probably 
begin with a course which develops the general-education learn- 
ing products in drawing. Beyond that, the learner is given a se- 
vere course of training in a series of units which are carefully 
selected with reference to their general applicability in all the 
special fields which have need of the draftsman. Severe training 
implies the development, not only of specialized intelligent atti- 
tudes, but likewise of skill in the technique of the vocation. Fol- 
lows special training in the narrower field chosen by the worker, 
architectural drawing or drafting in the mechanic arts, or 
what not. 

The differentiation between general-education and voca- 
tional objectives thus illustrated from the field of drawing is ap- 
plicable throughout the field of the practical arts. 

Lest the principles suggested in this chapter be misunder- 
stood and misapplied, it is perhaps pertinent to remind the read- 
er that we are dealing with the practice of teaching in the secon- 
dary period and not with the organization of schools. It should 
not be inferred that a high school which is in the main devoted 
to the purposes of general education is thereby in principle 
estopped from also offering courses in special training in one or 
more vocational fields. The essential consideration for the man- 
agement of the school is the principle that an appropriate differ- 
entiation shall be made between practical-arts courses which are 
designed to be contributions to general-education and practical- 


PRACTICAL ARTS IN GENERAL EDUCATION § 413 


arts courses which are designed to impart effective vocational 
training. The teaching procedure which is effective and suffi- 
cient in the first will always prove inadequate in the second; and 
that which is required in the second leads to an objective which 
is not at all the objective legitimately implied by the first. 

The reach and the extent of the adjustments in the individ- 
ual which are included in the field of the practical arts can by no 
means all be covered within the walls of the school. In the first 
place, the field is too broad; and in the second place, the school 
does not, and probably cannot, provide the necessary assimila- 
tive experience in some of the practical-arts units. The instance 
which will perhaps first occur to the reader is in secondary agri- 
culture. Whether we view a course in horticulture or one in field 
crops as a vocational course, as it perhaps usually is, or as a 
practical-arts course in the field of general education, as it often 
should be viewed, the field project is the core of the assimilative 
experience. It is as futile to attempt to teach such a course from 
a textbook as it would be to attempt to teach elementary algebra 
without problems. Now in certain types of schools in which the 
students reside on the grounds, practical field projects can 
_ doubtless be provided on the school estate. In most public 
schools, reliance must be placed upon the home project, and this 
is to the advantage of both home and school. The experience of 
the past twenty years in the teaching of agriculture has worked 
out the technique of the home project and nothing further on 
that point is required. 

It is often noted, however, that many others of the practical- 
arts units are as truly opportunities for home projects as is a 
course in agriculture. The heating of homes, for instance, calls 
for study in the school of the principles upon which heating 
plants are operated. It none the less calls for the actual opera- 
tion of the heating plant itself. The thoroughly normal and 
wholesome American home, where it can do so, still requires its 
sons of high-school age to perform this residue of the chores 


AIA THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


which were once so important a part of the boy’s education. The 
home still has numberless small jobs which the young people can 
do and should do, and the energetic practical-arts teacher will 
organize a systematic connection between the home and the 
school in this field. In cooking, meal planning, dressmaking, and 
other home occupations, the opportunity and the need of the 
home project are obvious. 

The reader will doubtless note in passing the intimate con- 
nection between the carrying out of home projects as an integral 
part of the work of the school in the practical arts and the de- 
velopment of right attitude toward conduct discussed in the pre- 
ceding chapter, especially in all that pertains to normal volition- 
al growth. 

It is quite true that the school is often met in such cases by 
the protest of the home. “Cheaper to hire it done than to have 
Mary do it.” “More trouble to make John attend to the job than 
to do it myself.”’ ‘““That is the janitor’s job or the housemaid’s.” 
The home must be convinced that in the nature of the case it 
cannot delegate the entire education of its children to the school, 


that it is not a question of being able to pay for things the young © 


people might do but of educating the rising generation. Doubt- 
less diplomacy and address in the school are required for the 


convincing of the home. There is no law to which appeal can be — 
made nor can there be any law. In the education of the children — 
there is frequently imperative need of educating the home, and — 
the school cannot meet its responsibility to education merely by — 


adopting a policy of renunciation. 

The foregoing is written with due appreciation of the fact 
that home life under modern city conditions has sometimes 
made household duties for the growing boy and girl entirely im- 
possible. The fact does not negative the principle; the choice 
must sometimes be made between a manner of family life and 
the normal and right upbringing of the children of the family. 


Such assimilative experience as the home project makes pos- 


———— — 





PRACTICAL ARTS IN GENERAL EDUCATION 415 


sible must be supervised by the teacher just as assimilative ex- 
perience within the school walls must be supervised. Hence, the 
definite outlining and mastery of the home project and system- 
atic inspection by the teacher. Just as the teacher of agriculture 
is allowed time and his motorcycle or automobile for the super- 
vision of the home projects in his courses, so should the prac- 
tical-arts teacher in the village or the city school be allowed 
time and transportation to carry out his schedule of inspecting 
similar undertakings in his field. 


CHAPTER XXIII 
TECHNIQUE IN PRACTICAL ARTS 


q ™ EACHING in the practical arts has had one great ad- 
vantage over teaching in most of the so-called “academic 
subjects.” It has never been susceptible of the lesson- 

learning type of treatment. No matter how formalized the teach- 

ing may have become, in the end learning must always perforce 
be direct learning and not lesson-learning. Whether the pupil 
is set to the making of a joint which is never used except 
in schools, or to the carrying out of a project in auto mechanics, 
he encounters real experience, and if he learns at all, he learns 
from experience; he has not occasion to transfer from learning 
about a thing to learning the thing itself. This is perhaps why it 
so often happens that a pupil who is an utter failure in textbook 
courses succeeds fairly well or even brilliantly in practical arts. 

In such cases, we probably often have instances of direct learn- 

ers whose first experience with direct learning is in the shop or 

the sewing-room. 

In the present chapter, as in all chapters which deal specific- 
ally with teaching procedure, the point of departure is the na- 
ture of the teaching objectives. We recall, then, that the prac- 
tical-arts objective, in general education, is a series of intelligent 
attitudes toward a particular field in the environment. Now 
such attitudes are comprehensible wholes and not syntheses of 
piecemeal parts. Intelligent attitude toward the automobile, for 
instance, is directed upon the machine as a whole, not upon the 
piston rings nor the crankshaft nor the differential. In wood- 
working, the objective is an intelligent attitude toward the man- 
agement of materials in a construction which has a useful pur- 
pose and is felt as such by the pupil; not craftsmanship in the 
making of a joint. The course is useful as a medium in the edu- 

416 


= 


TECHNIQUE IN PRACTICAL ARTS 417 


cation of a youth, and not as a means of training a skilled car- 
penter and joiner. The pupil’s practice is assimilative experience 
in the attainment of an intelligent and appreciative attitude and 
not training for the acquisition of skill in a trade. If the course 
had a vocational objective, then we should need to add to intel- 
ligent attitude the attainment of trade skill and arrange expe- 
rience on pure-practice principles calculated to develop such 
skill. Hence the teaching technique in practical arts in the field 
of general education centers around the project and not the 
exercise. 
THE PROJECT 


The project may be defined as a comprehensive and signifi- 
cant piece of construction or of manipulation which contributes 
to generation of the attitude in the pupil which is the objective 
of the educative process set up. An exercise, on the other hand, 
is practice on an isolated piece of manipulation. Thus, the over- 
hauling and reassembling of a gas engine and putting it in oper- 
ation under its own power is a project. Learning how to grind 
valves is an exercise. The construction of a colony poultry- 
house is a project. Learning how to handle a hand saw properly 
is an exercise. The preparation of a suitable breakfast is a proj- 
ect. Learning how to cook cereals is an exercise. 

A certain amount of exercise practice in working out a proj- 
ect is obviously necessary. On the gas-engine project, for in- 
stance, the boy will be unable to grind valves properly until he 
is shown how and has had some practice under supervision in 
grinding valves. If this element is passed over without mastery, 
his assembled engine is likely to show no compression when put 
in operation. His comrade who is working on the poultry-house 
will make a poor job indeed if he does not practice until he can 
saw toa line. The project itself fails in its ultimate educational 
purpose unless the incidental and necessary exercise work is 
properly done. It is worse than useless for a girl to prepare a 
meal the constituents of which are inedible for lack of proper 
exercise work, or for the boy to set up a gas engine which will 


418 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


not run. The crux of the matter consists in sensing the right pro- 
portion of exercise work and its right relation to the project, 
which is after all the important thing. 

In earlier schools, now happily obsolete, the exercise was the 
beginning and the end of the course and the project had no place 
at all. The shop had its proud exhibit of carefully made joints, 
beautifully turned card receivers, series of links in a meaning- 
less iron chain, handsomely wrought handwheel bereft of any 
comradeship with other parts of a useful machine. As pure man- 
ual training, such exercise work doubtless rendered some service, 
although service in that direction would have been more valua- 
_ ble if it had been rendered in connection with genuine and useful 
project work. That stage in practical-arts teaching corresponded 
to the stage at which a prolonged course in Latin consisted in 
learning principles and practice in applying them to the trans- 
verbalization of the classics. In neither case did any actual edu- 
cation take place except by chance. 

The appropriate subordination of the exercise to the project 
is always achieved when only such exercises are carried out as 
will contribute to the proper construction of the project and 
when they are carried only to the skill which is needed to make 
the project serve the purpose for which it is intended. As soon 
as exercise work passes beyond that critical dividing-line, the 
course passes out of the field of general education into that of 
special vocational training. 

The project is a comprehensive and significant piece of con- 
struction or manipulation. Explanation of what is meant takes 
us into the unit organization of the course and perhaps into one 
corner of the field of the curriculum itself, although the latter is 
a story by itself. Shop courses will perhaps serve as illustration. — 

Keeping in mind, then, the principles outlined in the preced- — 
ing chapter, let us first raise the question, What units will serve — 
to interpret that aspect of the practical-arts environment which 
we wish to make intelligible to the pupil who is not, and does not — 
intend to become, a specialist in any practical-arts field? 





TECHNIQUE IN PRACTICAL ARTS 419 


The most obvious aspect of the environment is perhaps 
house construction. This is then the unit, and the adaptation 
sought in the pupil is an intelligent attitude toward such con- 
struction. Now, if we have in mind simply the house itself apart 
from its furniture and equipment, house construction involves 
chiefly woodworking, glass, concrete, and brick. We shall need, 
then, to seek the project which will best serve as assimilative ex- 
perience in learning the unit. A project which appears as the 
construction of a small house will then be significant because it 
indubitably expresses and interprets the environment; and it 
will be comprehensive because it includes all the essential proc- 
esses which go into that type of construction. As a practical 
proposition, it will perhaps tax the ingenuity of the teacher to 
provide such a project, but it has nevertheless been done more 
than once. There are few schools indeed, and those chiefly in the 
great cities, in which the need of small buildings of one sort or 
another does not furnish the opportunity. Per contra, a project 
which would be neither significant nor comprehensive would be 
a section of concrete or brick wall laid up on the school grounds 
simply as an illustration of what walls should be, or a toy house 
constructed in the shop itself. 

Within the house or the office or the school building—almost 
any building in which people live and work—are found various 
pieces of furniture, in the construction of which another kind of 
woodworking is employed, requiring perhaps more exact meth- 
ods of manipulation and fitting. This has been the field of ad- 
vanced manual training and rightly so. A favorite project within 
this field has been a piece of furniture or a bookcase. Either of 
these is a significant project because it represents an important 
piece of the household surroundings. A large chair or a table is 
apt to be the more comprehensive since it involves not only fit- 
ting flat pieces of wood but also some turning, gluing, and finish- 
ing, and perhaps some carving. A bread board, a card receiver, 
an Indian club, on the other hand, is neither a significant nor a 
comprehensive project. 


420 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


A very significant aspect of the environment which presses 
on the attention of the householder is the plumbing of the house 
which he and his family inhabit. An intelligent attitude contrib- 
utes to his own satisfaction, to the health of his pocket, to his 
understanding of the sanitation problems of the community, and 
hence to his value as a citizen. In the field of general education, 
the construction and installation of fixtures is probably quite as 
important as the technique of fitting pipes. Nevertheless, atten- 
tion to manipulations like the latter is clearly essential to that 
understanding of the situation which amounts to a serviceable 
conviction. A significant and comprehensive project here would 
be setting up a water closet or a kitchen sink or a wash basin and 
connecting to both water supply and sewer. Learning how to 
wipe a joint would be neither significant nor comprehensive, 
though it might be an exercise in connection with the project 
proper. Arrangements for such projects in the shop itself can of 
course be made. In rural communities in which no sewers exist, 
study and installation of a septic tank could in principle very 
appropriately be made part of the project. | 

Akin to plumbing is steam-fitting, and much the same prin- 
ciples apply. The author recalls a school in which the boys ina 
shop course installed all the steam fitting in a newly constructed 
addition to the shop. Again, a significant and comprehensive 
project. It would have been entirely appropriate and feasible if 
the authorities had foreseen the need of the addition and had 
allowed the boys in the shop courses to erect the addition as a 
project in building construction, even though two or more suc- 
cessive classes had been engaged in the enterprise. 

Kindred to plumbing and steam-fitting is the study and in- 
stallation and repair of electrical appliances such as call bells, 
telephone service, and electric lighting. A significant and com- 
prehensive project here would be the installation of a system of 
call bells in the schoolhouse or the overhauling and repair of the 
system in use; another would be the installation of telephone 





TECHNIQUE IN PRACTICAL ARTS 421 


service in the schoolhouse or in part of the building; a third 
would be wiring and connecting up a lighting system. 

All three of the foregoing—plumbing, steam-fitting, and 
electrical appliances—are important contributions to the integ- 
rity of the school as a teaching institution. They are essentially 
applications of principles learned in elementary science and as 
such represent both functional testing and post-assimilation. 

In the preceding chapter, we have attempted a tentative 
analysis of the practical-arts environment, by no means com- 
plete, however, and have found therein certain of the major me- 
chanical appliances of industry and the common life as signifi- 
cant factors. Among these are the gas engine, the steam engine, 
the water turbine, the generator of electric current, the electric 
motor, systems of power transmission, and the automobile. 

The automobile is, in a sense, an epitome of this whole field. 
It includes a typical power generator, a system of power trans- 
mission, an electric generator, an accumulator of electric energy, 
and an electric motor. Furthermore, it is in itself a most signifi- 
cant aspect of the practical-arts environment. It is then a com- 
prehensive and significant project. 

If we now take the gas engine, the steam engine, the turbine, 
and the electric motor as projects in succession, in each case 
belting the power unit to the electric generator, we shall have 
again a major project comprising four minor projects, the ma- 
jor project being essentially experience with the generation and 
transmission of power. Each of the machines representing the 
minor projects is taken down by the pupil, cleaned, oiled, as- 
sembled, belted to the electric generator, and put under its own 
power. It is then adjusted until the assembly is running smooth- 
ly. In this case, the electric motor takes its current from the 
street mains or from a storage battery. The turbine, if it is used, 
is specially designed to operate under a head represented by the 
pressure in water mains. 

Now in the process of working upon these projects, and es- 
pecially the automobile project, a very useful piece of experience 


422 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


is repair work and perhaps new construction. There is always 
likely to be an abundance of the former, especially in connection 
with automobile overhauling and repairing. As to the latter, a 
working electric motor is apt to be a useful addition to shop 
equipment or to the equipment of some of the homes represented. 
Similarly, a working steam engine is not too complicated for 
construction by boys in general-education courses. Not only do 
repair work and new construction afford useful assimilative ex- 
perience in connection with the units already discussed, but they 
serve as appropriate starting-points for two types of activity 
which form significant parts of the practical-arts environment. 
These are blacksmithing and machine tool work. In village and 
country schools an abundance of construction and repair work 
not specifically related to any of the units suggested here also 
affords opportunity for these activities. 

The simpler and more essential blacksmithing processes 
have no place in general education as trade-training but they 
are useful as contributions to the building up of an intelligent 
attitude toward an important part of the industrial-arts environ- 
ment. They bear much the same relation to the mechanical proj- 
ect which processes in woodworking bear to the house and cab- 
inet projects. 

Similarly, the use of the engine lathe, planer, milling ma- 
chine, drill press, and grinder contributes an important element 
to the pupil’s adjustment to his mechanical environment. Here, 
as in most other instances in this field, and more here than in any 
other perhaps, it would not be worth the while for any pupil to 
spend a single period in the machine shop “‘because he may need 
to use the knowledge.” It is very much worth the while for him 
to pass through the experience for the sake of the enlightenment 
which he acquires concerning common experiences and contacts 
which he is destined to encounter almost every day of his life. 
The individual who contemplates a revolving shaft and sees in 
it a piece of steel, only this and nothing more, is a personality 
essentially different from, and probably inferior to, him who un- 


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TECHNIQUE IN PRACTICAL ARTS 423 


derstands its origin and purpose and senses that in case of need 
he could construct a similar one. The latter dominates and the 
former is dominated by the Machine. | 

As in the case of the blacksmithing process, those of the ma- 
chine shop are related primarily to the mechanical projects. 

In the foregoing discussion, we have attempted to illustrate 
the essential nature of the practical-arts project and to exhibit 
its relation to the true learning product as found in the practical- 
arts unit. The reader should understand that the projects sug- 
gested are suggested only for the purpose of illustration. We be- 
lieve that they would themselves constitute a serviceable course 
in industrial arts, but it is no part of the author’s intention to 
attempt to set up a curriculum. Other means of educational ac- 
cess to this aspect of our common environment, other units, and 
other projects might be more serviceable everywhere and prob- 
ably would be more serviceable in some communities. We are 
concerned here primarily with the organization of a possible 
teaching procedure. We have dealt only with the shop courses. 
_ The same principles will apply to the interpretation and organi- 
zation of the practical-arts courses in domestic arts, and to 
courses in the pictorial and plastic arts as well. 

One thinks of mechanical drawing in connection with shop 
courses. This is perhaps a mistake, for mechanical drawing, as 
we have seen, serves its purpose throughout the field of the in- 
dustrial environment. It is a means of graphic representation, 
and as such its teaching conforms to practical-arts principles. 
But it is also a means of graphic interpretation, and as such it is 
properly a language-arts subject. There is much reason to think 
that two courses might very properly be offered: one a practical- 
arts course in graphic construction, and the other a language- 
arts course in the reading of drawings. However that may be, 
we are concerned here with the practical-arts aspect of mechan- 
ical drawing. 

It is perhaps true that mechanical drawing, more than most 
practical-arts courses, has fallen under the domination of for- 


424 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


malistic exercise work. It has tended to hang suspended in the 
air, uncertain of any connection with realities, save in vocation- 
al courses in which its vital connection with work to be done is 
obvious. This need not be. Every project in a shop course may 
well be first a project in mechanical drawing. The principles 
which make the small house or the electric motor an appropriate 
project in construction make it likewise an appropriate project 
in mechanical drawing. The two are further intimately corre- 
lated since a serviceable educational use of the construction 
project implies the use of working drawings. 


TEACHING 

A needful preliminary to our consideration of teaching 
technique is perhaps to remind ourselves of the principle of 
initial diffuse movements as applied to the establishment of 
adaptations in the field of general education (see chap. x). 
We are dealing with large units and comprehensive projects. 
Our concern with them is that they shall contribute to genuine 
growth in the pupil, not that the pupil shall always do a me- 
chanically perfect piece of work. As the practical-arts course 
goes on, the pupil will naturally eliminate many of his cruder 
and more illy directed movements in favor of relative precision 
and economy. Many teachers of the practical arts, especially if 
they have been recruited from the field of the trades, tend to re- 
verse the process and attempt to develop mechanical skill first. 
The end is pretty apt to be that courses so conducted appeal only 
to pupils who are disinclined to use their minds or who perhaps 
have but a slender mental equipment to use. At the best, the 
project will be only mechanical skill, which in most cases is not 
the objective, and an educational result by chance if at all. 

On the other hand, there is of course no justification for us- 
ing the fundamental principle to which we have appealed as an 
excuse for negligent and slovenly work. Practical-arts projects, 
like study in the science-type subjects, should be used as instru- 
ments for severe intellectual training in competent and respect- 





TECHNIQUE IN PRACTICAL ARTS 425 


able methods of work. The point at issue can perhaps best be 
seen in a concrete illustration. 

A young boy who is nailing up a piece of woodwork will 
usually fail to hit the nail squarely, and, as a consequence, be- 
fore it is driven home, the nail is bent. The youngster then ham- 
mers the bent portion flush with the wood and repeats the proc- 
ess later with other nails. The result is of course not merely an 
unworkman-like job, but a slovenly piece of work. If allowed 
to establish a tradition of such work, the boy’s volitional devel- 
opment is not furthered and a contribution is made to the arrest 
of development at a childish level, which we have discussed at 
length in chapter xxi. The instructor invariably requires the 
pupil to draw the nails and to do not a perfect but a right job. 
If this part of the project is ruined, the pupil has to go back and 
begin over. Now, the teacher whose mind is obsessed with the 
thought, of a perfect mechanical product rather than occupied 
with the purpose of developing the boy will not allow the pupil 
to work on a project at all until he has learned the art of driving 
nails correctly. 

Again, in fitting two boards, perhaps, it is necessary to saw 
accurately to line. Otherwise, the joint will not close and the 
whole project, it may be, fails to function. Now the natural boy 
will not saw to line, partly because he has not learned how but 
largely because he will not make the effort. The task of the in- 
structor is to convince him that he must saw to the line, not only 
in this case but always. To do so is to work at mastery level. 
Incidentally, the practical-arts teacher who is an educator seizes 
the opportunity to generalize the training and establish a trans- 
ferable ideal. In brief, he seeks to convince the pupil that saw- 
ing to the line is an essential guiding principle in all school life 
and in life in general. Thus does the pupil take a step in voli- 
tional evolution. The formalist, on the other hand, will not allow 
the pupil to work on a project at all until he has learned to make 
joints accurately. 

It will probably be objected that, unless the pupil is trained 


426 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


to accurate work as a preliminary, he will ruin a lot of valuable 
material. The answer, of course, is that he should not be given 
projects in mahogany until he has matured to the point at which 
he can be trusted to deal with that kind of material. If he never 
reaches that point in his general education, it does not matter. 
A mahogany study chair skilfully executed makes an imposing 
exhibition piece, but it reflects a product in pupil development 
which may have been gained at a cost altogether out of propor- 
tion to its value in his education. 

A second preliminary warning in developing the principles 
of teaching in this field is contained in the reminder that prac- 
tical-arts courses in the shop, in the woodworking and black- 
smithing activities in particular, are also manual-training 
courses. The farther the school is from abundant opportunities 
for manual work in the home and in the community, the more 
does manual training loom large as a valuable and necessary de- 
velopmental activity. Now, planing and sawing and hammering 
constitute the chief manual-training activities. Wherever the 
teacher, with an eye to the mechanical rather than to the human 
product, introduces the power jointer or saw, he deprives the 
pupil of a very important element in the value for which the 
course stands. It is no rejoinder to assert that the modern car- 
penter shop has replaced many of its hand tools with labor-sav- 
ing machinery. General education is not using the woodworking 
shop for the production of carpenters but for the development of 
boys. 

It is not ordinarily practicable for pupils to work together 
on the same project unless the latter is a large one containing 
operations which occur many times, such as, for instance, a sub- 
stantial house project. To put several pupils together on a proj- 
ect is apt to mean that no one of them will acquire the round of 
experience for which the project stands. In the few instances in 
which several, or perhaps a whole section, work together, the 
conditions of course resemble those under which a working gang 
of men operates. In working individual projects, there is no 





TECHNIQUE IN PRACTICAL ARTS 427 


hard-and-fast sequence, although of course the younger pupils 
do not begin in the machine shop, not because the woodworking 
projects are necessarily pedagogical prerequisites to the metal- 
working projects, but because the latter require greater matur- 
ity both of judgment and of volitional capacity. In domestic 
arts and agriculture, and indeed in most practical-arts courses 
other than shop courses, many pupils can be working upon the 
same project at the same time. In the shops, the necessary du- 
plication of apparatus would in most cases be altogether too ex- 
pensive. 

The course has then been organized in unit form and the ap- 
propriate projects associated with the several units. There thus 
appears a course outline which can be mimeographed and placed 
in the hands of the pupils or printed on a chart and placarded 
in an appropriate place in the shop or domestic-arts laboratory 
or the classroom in agriculture. We thus come to the systematic 
teaching procedure which has much in common with that of the 
science type. 

Pre-test in practical arts.—The pre-test member of the mas- 
tery formula cannot be safely, or at least economically, ignored; 
but the testing procedure is adapted to the nature of the course. 

The needs of the pre-test are satisfied when the teacher has 
become aware of the pupil’s present experience and knowledge 
in the unit which the latter is about to attack. In some cases the 
teacher will be sufficiently familiar with the out-of-school life of 
the pupil to form an entirely valid notion of the latter’s apper- 
ceptive background. This boy, for instance, is the son of a car- 
penter, and he is known to be actively interested in his father’s 
calling. He is released. Another pupil the teacher knows never 
to have had the slightest contact with anything implied by the 
unit. Others are quizzed in individual conferences. As the 
course goes forward and the teacher becomes better acquainted 
with the practical-arts side of his pupils’ lives, the pre-tests on 
successive units practically administer themselves. 

In other courses, and in some shop courses it may be, pupils 


428 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


will all be working the same unit at the same time. In that case 
the pre-test is the exploration of the science type. 

Presentation.—For each unit and project in the shop course 
an extended set of mimeographed instructions is prepared, or, 
if a suitable textbook is available, that is placed in the hands of 
the pupils. Now such instructions essentially correspond to the 
presentation in the science-type unit plus the assimilation guide 
sheet. They might be given up in favor of an oral presentation 
except for the fact that such a presentation would be required 
for each pupil. In courses in which all work on the same project 
at the same time, the regular science-type procedure of oral pres- 
entation is followed. 

In the matter of instruction sheets, it is important to note 
that they should constiute a real presentation of the unit as well 
as a guide sheet for the project. Teachers sometimes furnish 
simply explicit guide sheets for the project in which the entire 
operation is detailed from step to step. In such cases, the pupil 
of course tends to become merely a laborer following out instruc- 
tions which leave little opportunity for reflection. In the auto- 
mobile unit, for example, the proper presentation is something 
after this fashion. Attention is called to the less obvious aspects 
of its place in social and industrial life. Its rapid evolution as a 
mechanism is noted. Its peculiar availability for the service it 
renders is set forth. (The teacher bears in mind that in most 
schools today the pupils have had no experience with a motorless 
age.) Attention is called to its singularly comprehensive charac- 
ter as a machine. Its essential features are then explained in or- 
der, and the vital parts of its upkeep, such as lubrication and 
care of valves, of the ignition system, and of the electrical parts, 
are enumerated. Easily understood drawings with a minimum 
of detail are either included or else reference is made to easily 
accessible charts or drawings in books. In the end, the pupil 
should have in mind a clear and reliable sense of the unit and of 
its import. 

Before proceeding to the project, the necessary presentation 





TECHNIQUE IN PRACTICAL ARTS 420 


test is administered. This may be either of the two forms de- 
scribed in the chapter on exploration and presentation (sec 
chap. xv). On the whole, the written presentation test is to be 
preferred for the sake of its marked effect in compelling intellec- 
tual exertion. Whichever form is used, the pupil’s reaction to 
presentation is not accepted until he shows evidence of having 
thoroughly read and digested. If a test paper is submitted which 
does not indicate mastery of this part of the instruction, the pu- 
pil is told to read again and get the meat of the matter, although 
of course not all the details. The immature boy, here as else- 
where, is prone to half-read instructions, and every opportunity 
is seized upon which will enable him to acquire a sense of work 
thoroughly done. 

The guide sheet for the project should indicate what is to be 
done, but not how it is to be done. It should contain lists of ap- 
propriate reading material and references to charts, working 
drawings, book material, and the like but not such directions as 
“Read pages 54-59.” In brief, the pupil is placed in the pres- 
ence of his project with the background of his presentation 
sheets and abundant collateral sources of material, but he is then 
expected to work for himself and by himself. Exercises are indi- 
cated; e.g., “Before trying to fit shelves, you will need to prac- 
tice with the mitre-box until you are sure you can use it accu- 
rately for the purpose intended. Use scrap pieces of board.” 
The project is not a piece of ground-to-be-covered but an expe- 
rience out of which it is intended that the pupil shall accomplish 
certain learnings. 

Assimilation—The practical-arts project corresponds to the 
assimilation period in the science type and much the same tech- 
nique is followed throughout. The same cautions are to be ob- 
served concerning the tendency of pupils to sponge. The same 
check and training on sustained application are required. The 
problem case and corrective procedure are essentially the same. 
The testing is different. The teacher has before him a typical 
supervised-study problem. Not only the work but, as far as pos- 


430 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


sible, the mind of each pupil is to be followed. The requirements 
can perhaps be made clearer by visiting first a poorly supervised 
room and then one which is well supervised. 

The first is a forge room. We note on entering that the air is 
a haze of smoke traceable to poorly made fires and neglect of 
drafts. Pupils are coughing in an atmosphere of sulphur fumes 
and the coughing is rapidly becoming hilarious rather than physi- 
ological. There is a clatter of tools being dropped upon the floor. 
One group is skylarking. As soon as we can locate the teacher, 
we note that he is feverishly trying to regulate a fire while the 
pupil concerned is standing listlessly by and contemplating the 
process. Presently, the teacher desists and shouts, ““Tom, get to 
work on that job.” He rushes to the next boy and mends the lat- 
ter’s fire. He then grasps the tongs from another, seizes an over- 
heated piece of iron, and furiously hammers it on the anvil. 
And so it goes. Investigation shows that the shop is being con- 
ducted on the exercise basis. No one of the boys has any notion 
of what it is all about. There has been no presentation and there 
are no guide sheets. The teacher did, however, give a brief dem- 
onstration yesterday, and if we had been present we should have 
seen a group of fifteen boys huddled about a forge and anvil, the 
rear ranks vainly attempting to get a glimpse of the process over 
their classmates’ shoulders. In a brief conference at the end of 
the hour, the teacher shakes his head dubiously and remarks, 
‘These boys do not seem to be able to concentrate.” 

We next visit another school and find a general-shop room. 
Here are carpenters’ benches, a few wood lathes, a half-dozen 
blacksmithing outfits, a glue outfit, a tinsmith’s bench, and an 
outfit of breast drills. Fifteen boys, as they enter, rapidly get 
into jumpers and overalls and attack as many different projects. 
The teacher is a quiet young man who has taken position near 
his desk and his own working material where he can see all that 
goes on. Every boy in the room is busily engaged on his own 
task. There is no “visiting,” but occasionally two boys seem to 
be comparing notes. Presently, one of the boys leaves his proj- 





x 
Id 


TECHNIQUE IN PRACTICAL ARTS 431 


ect, crosses the room, selects a volume from the bookcase, and 
seats himself at a long study table. He makes some notes and a 
rough sketch and after a time returns to his work. Meantime, 
we hear the teacher call out, ‘Better start that again, George.” 
A boy comes to the teacher and remarks, “I think I am all 
through on Unit VII, Mr. .’? “All right,” returns the 
teacher, “I will inspect and let you know tomorrow. Here are 
the instruction sheets for Unit VIII.” This boy spends the re- 
mainder of the period at the reading table. Another announces 
that he would like the teacher to look over his work since he is 
approaching a critical point. The teacher accordingly steps rap- 
idly across the room, inspects the project, and we note that there 
are three minutes of brief conversation. When the teacher re- 
turns we inquire, ‘““How was it?” “Pretty good,’ is the reply. 
“He will have to go back over a part of it.” Toward the end of 
the period, a boy presents himself and remarks, “I am ready to 
learn how to make a weld, Mr. , and I guess Frank is too. 
We have read up on it and we think we see how it is done, but we 
should like a demonstration.” ‘All right, can you and Frank and 
John and William come in for a little while this afternoon?”’ 
“Yes, sir, I guess so.” “But,” we inquire, ‘‘are these boys will- 
ing to come back for after-school work?” “Yes, this place is 
open till five every night for voluntary work and two-thirds of 
this class is usually here. Ordinarily, I give a demonstration dur- 
ing the class period, but this is rather a particular piece of work, 
and it will take some time. As long as the boys are willing to 
come, I prefer to make it an after-school affair.” Before the bell 
rings, the teacher calls another boy to him and bids the latter be 
present after the session. This boy looks grieved. 

We are glad to return at 3:30, and, as the teacher antici- 
pated, the greater part of the class is present. We are curious to 
follow out the story of the reluctant pupil and so we listen to the 
colloquy. “‘James, you are badly behind with your project. Do 
you know why?” “Don’t work hard enough, I suppose.” “It 
isn’t so much that as that you don’t know how to work. You 








432 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


dawdle and will not stick to your job. See, this is how you work 
[application profile]. I have talked to you once before about 
this. I have had a talk with your father, and he agrees with me 
that the most important thing for you is to learn what work 
means. See, here is a picture of Frank at work, and Frank is 
here voluntarily. He is enjoying work and as soon as you be- 
come willing to apply yourself, you will enjoy yourself too. So 
you are going to work overtime until you have got into the habit 
of making a good work profile. It is up to you.” 

Meantime, the four boys in whom we are specially inter- 
ested have started four forge fires. The teacher sits down with 
them and quizzes them for fifteen minutes on the process of 
welding. In the end he is satisfied that all four are thoroughly 
aware what the process is and in general how it is carried out. 
He then gathers them about a forge and makes his demonstra- 
tion, talking as he works. After a few further questions on the 
part of the boys, each takes some scrap and goes to work. The 
teacher stands back and watches them. Very little is said until 
the job is done. We note particularly that the teacher does not 
keep up a continuous flow of advice, instruction, and interrup- 
tions. When the boys have finished, there is a period of perhaps 
ten minutes of discussing the work and then all four boys repeat 
the process, and each makes an acceptable weld. 

Such is the difference between a good technician and an in- 
competent teacher. “But,” the reader may remark, “‘you have 
simply pictured the difference between a hopeless rattle-brain 
and a strong, capable man.” Not at all. We have contrasted a 
man who is willing to work systematically, thoughtfully, and 
with due self-control with another who is not willing to make 
the effort. The inadequate, incoherent person whom we found 
in the first school is not essentially different at bottom from the 
boy whom we found in the second school under special training 
for lack of sustained application. 

In our description of the work of the second teacher, we 
have suggested the application of the mastery formula to proj- 


TECHNIQUE IN PRACTICAL ARTS 433 


ect work and likewise the application of assimilation testing. 
As a matter of fact, in practical-arts teaching both are largely 
self-applied. The student who is working on a project and finds 
that what he has done does not work out according to the picture 
which is in his mind is naturally inclined to revise his operations 
and try again. The teacher may in many cases be obliged to 
hold students up to high ideals of effort and persistency; that is 
part of their training in right attitude toward conduct. He may 
at times need to make suggestions as to the seat of the trouble 
which the student is finding it difficult to locate, but, if he takes 
over the project for the time and locates the student’s difficulty 
for him, he deprives the latter of any real educational product. 
If the presentation has been thoroughly done and tested, and if 
the instructor has seen to it that the shop is furnished with an 
adequate working library of books and other collateral mate- 
rial, it will seldom be necessary even to suggest. Here, as else- 
where, in study periods, the most obstinate learning products 
are the development of sustained application and the convincing 
of each pupil that he can and must work out his own salvation. 

The final assimilation test is the inspection and acceptance 
of the completed project, but such is not the unit test. Be it re- 
membered that the practical-arts unit objective is intelligent at- 
titude. The working of the project is a performance which must 
itself be checked up, but, after all, the project is only an expe- 
rience out of which, in connection with the presentation and 
more or less collateral reading, intelligent attitude may or may 
not arise. In the end, the unit test is precisely similar to the unit 
test set at the end of the assimilation period in the science type. 
Like the latter, it is well to submit the student to an exploratory 
unit test comparatively early in the project or assimilation period 
in order to secure a basis for corrective teaching. Otherwise, the 
pupil may come through to the end with non-mastery, and in 
that case the unit has to be attacked anew with a second and dif- 
ferent project. Of course a waste of time and motivation is thus 


434 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


incurred which might have been avoided by adequate follow-up 
and reteaching. 
ADMINISTRATION OF PROJECTS 

As we have already noted, some practical-arts courses are 
of a nature which permits all pupils to work on the same project 
or equivalent projects at the same time, while others do not ad- 
mit of such treatment. Others still admit of either treatment. 
Again, practical-arts courses, like others, are susceptible to an 
indefinite amount of voluntary enterprise study. The latter 
may be in the form of additional projects, or in the form of ex- 
tended investigations in the library. On the whole, in the field of 
general education, the latter are probably to be preferred in 
most cases. 

When the course is of such a nature that purely individual 
work is done, administrative problems arise which require a 
more or less abrupt departure from standardized notions of ad- 
ministrative routine. Apparatus is expensive, and enough of it 
to provide every pupil with equipment whenever he needs it 
would require an unreasonable amount of floor space. Nor is 
the latter at all necessary or even desirable. While units, and the 
suggestive projects under each unit, should be listed in con- 
venient order, it does not necessarily always follow that all pu- 
pils should begin at the same point on the list. Again, it is often 
possible and even desirable that several pupils who are working 
on the same unit shall work on different projects, all of them 
focusing on the same unit. Finally, in courses which are carried 
as strictly individual work, it is not essential that pupils shall 
end the course or even begin it at the same time. A typical ar- 
rangement may be pictured somewhat in the following manner. 

The course is organized in units and posted. Under each 
unit, if more than one project is possible, several are suggested. 


Instruction sheets and guide sheets are made available and — 
stored in a case accessible to all pupils. The instructor has pre- — 


pared a master-sheet on which the names of the pupils registered 
appear in a column to the left, while the unit titles or numbers 








TECHNIQUE IN PRACTICAL ARTS 435 


are carried across the top. The sheet is then ruled in rectangular 
form. As each pupil completes a unit, he is checked in the ap- 
propriate square. 

Now, as soon as the class lists are prepared, the teacher, the 
head of the department, and perhaps the principal’s office con- 
fer. Pupil A is known to be a slow worker and something of a 
problem case though in no sense remedial. Pupils E, M, N, O, S, 
T, and W are in varying degrees much of the same order. All 
are notified to meet the practical-arts teacher on the day sched- 
uled for opening. Pupil B, however, is known to be relatively 
well equipped already, and will probably be released on one or 
more of the units. His beginning is deferred for three months, 
and he is advised to throw himself with special energy for a good 
start into a language course in which he is likely to be weak. 
Pupil C will probably work effectively and need little corrective 
teaching, but practical-arts work is new to him. His beginning 
is deferred for one month. Several others are treated on like 
grounds. As the course develops, Pupil E exhibits special talent 
and completes the course early. Pupil B exhibits strong inclina- 
tion for voluntary enterprises, and, in spite of the fact that he is 
released on several units, the succeeding class has entered upon 
the course before he finishes. Pupil C makes up his month and 
finishes early, but he does no voluntary enterprises; his chief 
interest is in history. Others finish at different times, but Pupils 
A and B for different reasons run over the normal time allotment. 

While we have drawn our illustrations largely from the shop 
courses, the principles apply equally to all others which are 
practical arts in their nature. The teaching may be concerned 
with agriculture; with cooking or dressmaking; with accounting 
or office practice; with drawing, design, or modeling. The char- 
_ acteristics of all are: organization in comprehensive and signifi- 
cant units which can be mastered as intelligent attitudes; the 
selection of significant and comprehensive projects which focus 
upon the several units; insistence upon creditable performance 
in working the projects; effective testing and follow-up; and 
finally testing for learning products implied. 


CHAPTER XXIV 
LANGUAGE ARTS 


HE five types of learning which we are considering in 
this part of our study have much in common, but for 


practical teaching purposes the differences are much 
more important than the similarities. The type which forms the 
subject matter of this and the two succeeding chapters is dis- 
tinctly the most pronounced in its peculiar characteristics, and 
successful learning in the subjects which belong to the type is 
more critically dependent upon accurate recognition of the 
learning peculiarities involved than is the case in any of the 
others. It has to do with the art of getting thought content or 
some other form of impression from running discourse of some 
sort, and with the art of giving expression to one’s thoughts or 
emotions in the form of discourse. The type includes not only 
reading and speaking and writing in language, but such kindred 
learning objectives as musical and dramatic expression. In fact, 
wherever the discourse element is present, we have the critical 
differential which marks off the type. The name “language arts” 
is chosen, not because the learning is limited to linguistic expres- 
sion and impression, but rather because the pedagogical prob- 
lem involved is most commonly found in the school languages. 
In developing the type we shall study the teaching of languages, 
but teachers of other subjects, such as the various forms of mu- 
sical expression which belong to the type, will be able to under- 
stand the principles set forth and apply them in their own spe- 
cial fields. | 
The learning objective in the language arts is always an 
ability to read or hear or feel a message expressed in some form 
of language, or else an ability to use some form of language to 
express thought or feeling, without in either case focal conscious- 


436 


LANGUAGE ARTS 437 


ness of the discourse itself. Such ability we shall term generical- 
ly a language-arts adaptation. We have already found it in the 
primary reading adaptation discussed at some length in our 
chapter i. There the child comes to the point at which he sees 
through the printed page to the message beyond, much as a per- 
son gazes through a window without consciousness of the glass. 
In the same sense, the pupil who has learned to read French 
without translating has attained a reading adaptation in French. 
He no longer picks his words but looks through them to the mes- 
sage which the complex of words conveys. Again, the person 
who writes his vernacular for the purpose of conveying a mes- 
sage to others does so without consciousness of the words he 
uses. He does not fit words together in a sort of discourse mosaic 
but rather the words fall into their right places while his mind is 
centered on the thought which he wishes to express. He becomes 
conscious of what he is writing only when an occasional right 
word fails to drop into place. Using the same terminology, we 
may call this objective the composition adaptation. Once more, 
the musician can express the feeling which he wishes to arouse 
in his audience only when he has developed such mastery of his 
instrument that he is no longer obliged to pick his way over the 
keyboard or strings. 

Confining ourselves now to the language uses which are 
commonly taught in the secondary period, let us take French as 
an illustration of the learning of a foreign tongue. So far as use 
of the language is concerned, there are two primary objectives, 
either the reading adaptation in French which has just been de- 
fined or the speaking adaptation which is a similar objective. 
That the speaking adaptation can readily be learned in the 
school is probably doubtful. A special social situation is re- 
quired in which the proper motivation for converse is present 
and the proper type of assimilative experience, that is to say, 
_ practice in normal conversation, is available. That pupils can be 
led to the reading adaptation in its full sense is beyond question. 
We shall confine ourselves to the latter for the present. 


438 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


The objective then being clearly in mind, the teacher pro- 
ceeds directly toward its attainment. He utilizes such forms of 
presentation, class exercises; and reading material as will defi- 
nitely focus upon the attainment of the objective. He cherishes 
no illusions that learning lessons about the structure of the lan- 
guage will automatically transfer to ability to read. His proce- 
dure is the essence of direct method. 

It is important to discriminate between the reading adapta- 
tion and certain other arts sometimes acquired. 

The most obvious is the so-called translation ability, in 
which the pupil learns to use a lexicon in one form or another for 
the purpose of turning French into a sort of French-English. He 
may retain in memory enough word meanings so that he be- 
comes a veritable briefer lexicon in himself. In a clumsy and 
awkward way, he can thus contrive to decipher the meaning of 
the page. He is not reading but deciphering, not translating but 
“transverbalizing.” He may indeed become so skilful that he 
carries on the process rapidly but he is still deciphering and not 
reading. 

Students of language are universally agreed that a meaning 
expressed in one language cannot accurately be expressed in an- 
other by this process which we have called transverbalization. 
Every people has its own peculiar thought processes which are 
faithfully reflected in peculiar forms of expression. The pupil 
who learns to read and reads a great deal comes to sense these 
peculiar meanings. ‘To some extent, he enters into the spirit of 
the other people and indeed this is in itself an important educa- 
tional objective. The artist who is a master of both the foreign 
tongue and of English can indeed translate, but he does so by 
catching the thought expressed in the foreign tongue and then 
endeavoring to express the same thought as the English-speak- 
ing person would express it. 

As we have seen, the test of the reality of a learning product 
is its habitual use and permanency. Neither the deciphering 
ability nor the school translation ability is likely to become a 


ee ee ie ee 








LANGUAGE ARTS 439 


real product for the reason that use is too difficult. Nobody is 
likely to use the foreign tongue habitually in that way unless he 
is under some strong motivation, such for instance as employ- 
ment as a translator. On the other hand, one who has learned to 
read the foreign tongue in the same sense as that in which he 
reads his mother-tongue is apt to be reading in both, as interest 
or entertainment dictates. 

Similarly, the fundamental objective in English writing is 
the ability to express one’s self correctly and with facility. Now 
this seems to be a unitary adaptation like reading ability. The 
experiential process through which he has attained the adapta- 
tion may have been a complicated one in which there are many 
elements, but in the end the pupil habitually expresses himself 
clearly and in conformity to conventional usage or he does not. 
The contrasting situation is that in which the individual simply 
does not bother to express himself other than in a semi-illiterate 
manner. He seems to have no sense of an obligation to be sure 
of his spelling, his punctuation, or his sentence structure. It may 
be that he is not conscious of right usage or of composition but it 
is certainly true that many times he fails to write as well as he 
knows. Now, it is quite true that the person who possesses a 
sense of correct writing is occasionally guilty of lapses. Prob- 
ably everybody has such experiences. But there is a wide differ- 
ence between him who fails to catch an error in proofing his pa- 
per and him whose papers are a mass of illiteracy, who never 
proofs his writing, and possesses no sense of the need of doing 
so. 

Now the teacher who has here the fundamental objective in 
view all the time adjusts instruction, course content, and assimi- 
lative practice to the end in view. He tests with reference to the 
end, studies defects in the learning process, and corrects them 
with the objective in mind. Again, this is the essence of direct 
teaching. The teacher does not give a course in grammar and 
then one in usage and finally one in rhetoric, in the expectation 
that automatic transfer from performance in these several 


440 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


courses to the ability and the attitude which spells habitual cor- 
rect writing will later take place. 


SUCCESSIVE ADAPTATION LEVELS AND ASSOCIATED SKILLS 

In the language arts, more perhaps than in other fields, it is 
essentially important to distinguish between the fundamental 
learning products on the one hand and successive masteries and 
the associated skills on the other. 

In the case of habitually correct writing, we have an in- 
stance of a fundamental learning product. For purposes of gen- 
eral education, that is as far as the individual need go. Some in- 
dividuals, however, either because they become interested in 
writing as such or because vocational needs require it, go on and 
develop masteries at the levels of stylistic accomplishment. This 
person, for instance, develops an expository style; another ac- 
quires the style called for by good journalism; still another that 
which makes him a successful writer of novels. These additional 
attainments are characteristic of the persons concerned as indi- 
viduals; we soon turn away from the writer whose style is a 
purely conventional affair. The attainments are adaptations in 
the same sense that the fundamental learning product of correct 
writing is an adaptation, The man is known by his style in a 
manner not very different from that in which he is marked off 
from others by his features: it is a part of him. 

On the other hand, facility may be built up on the basis of 
any of these adaptations. This high-school pupil writes correct- 
ly, and he writes rapidly and fluently. His vocabulary is flex- 
ible, and he manages involved sentences well. Another writes 
slowly, laboriously, and with a restricted vocabulary, but he 
writes correctly. As far as the fundamental learning product is 
concerned, the two are at the same level, but one has acquired 
facility while the other has not. 

Again, two pupils have alike arrived at the reading adapta- 
tion in a foreign language. Both show the characteristics which 
the latter implies. But one of them reads rapidly and, if tested, 





| 
| 
‘ 
f 
. 
. 


LANGUAGE ARTS 441 


shows a high rate score, while the reading of the other is slow 
and his rate score is low. Both have arrived at the fundamental 
learning product but they differ, perhaps widely, in skill. 

Now the teacher and the school not infrequently center at- 
tention either upon skill or upon the rudimentary appearance of 
what are in reality successive masteries so that the true learning 
product is lost sight of, with disastrous results. The school is so 
interested in evaluating educational results in terms of the rela- 
tive attainments of different pupils, that all pupils fall into the 
chasm of no genuine attainment at all. The teacher notes that A 
shows considerable facility while B shows less. As a matter of 
fact, both are on their way to the mastery contemplated by the 
course or sequence of courses, but neither has arrived. C shows 
signs of what may turn out to be budding literary genius but he 
habitually writes with scant regard to the requirements of cor- 
rect writing. D, on the other hand, shows no literary promise 
and writes as correctly as C. C is accordingly graded higher be- 
cause the remotely possible literary genius he displays seems to 
“require recognition.” In the end neither pupil acquires the 
adaptation in terms of which he habitually uses correct English. 

In the process of acquiring a language-arts adaptation, 
whether it be the primary reading adaptation or a stylistic level 
in specialized university courses, elements of skill begin to ap- 
pear at once. Judged by performance, the pupil is improving. 
He continues to improve in skill along the line of the character- 
istic learning curve up to and through mastery of the learning 
unit, but there is no evidence, from scores which reveal improve- 
ment in skill, when the adaptation has been made or that it has 
been made at all. Evidence of the latter must be sought in other 
directions, for instance in the characteristic eye movements of 
the reading adaptation. A rough method of identifying the pres- 
ence of the adaptation in a reading course is to note when the 
learner begins to read voluntarily upon exposure to attractive 
reading material. Overlooking the principle just set forth leads 
backward into a common form of lesson learning, in this way. 


442 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


The teacher has no specific objective in mind, but only rela- 
tive degrees of skill in different performers; but there must be 
some standard of performance. What shall it be? There are two 
possible answers. We may go back to our system of passing 
grades and fix the standard at the score achieved by the poorest 
performer of that group which we feel obliged to pass, or we 
may set a standardized test and select as passing performance 
the score achieved by some statistically selected median pupil 
which becomes the norm. In neither case does the passing grade 
of performance bear any relation to the attainment of a lan- 
guage-arts objective. On the contrary, the standard set either 
by the passing grade method or by the standardized norm 
throws us back into a situation in which the adaptation will not 
be attained except by a casual few. 

It is nevertheless always possible to keep track of the true 
learning product by observing the pupils in their progress toward 
it and by identifying the point at which it is attained. The time 
comes when we may say with confidence: A, B, and M have 
learned to read or write in the true sense and they need continue 
in this course no longer; C, D, and N have not reached that 
point and they will need further experience. 


THE TYPICAL INHIBITION 

Language-arts learning, like learning in other types, is pos- 
sible only when its own peculiar learning conditions are satis- 
fied. The tendency of schools is to reduce all learning to a crude 
science type process. The effect upon subjects which belong to 
the appreciation type or to the practical arts is to make the 
learning product nil, with or without inhibitions. The effect up- 
on subjects which belong to the language-arts type is systemat- 
ically to set up actual inhibitions of a peculiar and characteristic 
type. We shall call them generically the language-arts inhibition 
and adopt the term into our terminology. 

The set of reactions which either learning or use of a lan- 
guage art requires takes place in a situation whose characteristic 


Ce iin 


LANGUAGE ARTS 443 


is running discourse. The mind has no chance to pause for con- 
scious reflection from word to word, although it may, of course, 
pause for reflection upon the content which is contained in the 
discourse. Any such pause, if it is a part of the learner’s method, 
generates the mental set to which we have applied the term used 
in the preceding paragraph. If a learner in a foreign language, 
for instance, thinks to himself, ‘This word means and 
this one I must look up; this word is probably a subject because 
it is nominative and the exact meaning of this verb is continu- 
ing past time because it is in the imperfect tense,” he proceeds 
haltingly and after long and laborious effort builds up a deciph- 
ering, transverbalizing ability falsely called translation. If now 
we take such a pupil and try to teach him to read, we find that 
he has the characteristic mental set which has grown out of his 
learning experience. He is looking for words and other isolated 
elements and even a slight appearance of unfamiliarity causes 
him to balk. Those of us who have learned to read encounter a 





. great many unfamiliar words even in maturity, but we read over 


them to the meaning of the passage as a whole. Usually the un- 
familiar word slips into its place from the meaning of the con- 
text. If not, we do not stop until the meaning of the passage as 
a whole fails to clear up, and then we go back and investigate 
the unfamiliar word. In other words, we read for meaning, and 
isolated elements fall into their places in the whole complex 
which constitutes the meaning of the passage as a whole. 

The language-arts inhibition in foreign language is chiefly 
traceable to the grammatical daily-lesson type of approach. 


The latter attempts to teach a language through the application 


of science type principles to a discourse situation. It rarely suc- 
ceeds and then only in a casual and uneconomical way. We oc- 
casionally find a student who has been given long training in the 
ordinary grammatical approach, acquiring thereby only the 
ability to decipher with the aid of a lexicon, and whose language 
needs call for the reading adaptation. In such cases it commonly 


: happens that the language-arts inhibition must be broken down 


ee 


444 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


by remedial treatment. In some way, he has to be taught to “let 
himself go” and disregard the errors he may make in his seeking 
rapidly for a sense of the meaning of the passage as a whole, re- 
reading rapidly several times until the meaning begins to come 
clear. It is interesting to watch such a remedial case and note 
the persistence with which the language-arts inhibition holds on. 
He has been convinced of the nature of his difficulty and has 
seen clearly the way out, but if we watch him at work we shall 
see him guiltily and furtively turning to his lexicon for the mean- 
ing of an unfamiliar word. For some time he simply cannot get 
over the malevolent insistence of that old mental set. 

The corresponding situation in English expression is com- 
monly found rather in the primary than in the secondary school. 
The young child is natively extremely voluble. Apparently this 
is nature’s method of giving him sufficient assimilative practice 
for the needs of his developing power of expression in language. 
If allowed to have his fling at home and school he is no doubt 
tiresome to his elders, but he grows. By the time he has reached 
the school age he has learned to tell a connected story, but he is 
extremely prolix. Little by little his stories become coherent and 
he takes on a certain charming individuality in what he has to 
say and in his manner of saying it—provided parents and teach- 
ers are possessed of unusual patience. Let the child grow up 
in this way and we are quite likely to find an adult whose lan- 
guage is, to be sure, devoid of conventions but nevertheless 
graphic and forceful. We find individualistic ways of looking at 
things joined with quaint and apt forms of expression. In the 
highly artificial life of complex society we are more likely to 
meet such people in secluded and somewhat remote corners than 
in the standardized life of the city. But our loquacious child 
seldom does have his fling. In the home he is suppressed, and in 
the school he is not only suppressed but there are inflicted upon 
him unended series of language ‘“‘don’ts.”’ His energies are di- 
rected to language papers long before his handwriting adapta- 
tion has become established, while he is still practicing exercises 


LANGUAGE ARTS 4A5 


in penmanship. The result is familiar: the child will say little in 
the schoolroom and will write less. Whatever he has to say must 
express some form of school convention rather than a meaning 
sensed and recognized by himself as meaning. The pupil is a 
mass of language-arts inhibitions. 

There is a somewhat similar situation in high school and 
college, where good performance in a composition class refuses 
to transfer to ordinary writing, although the lesson-learning ele- 
ment is apt by that time to have also become influential. 

In general, wherever in the learning of a language art the 
learning process focalizes consciousness upon isolated elements 
of the discourse situation, the language arts inhibition tends to 
be set up. 

ASSOCIATED LANGUAGE OBJECTIVES 

In the courses ordinarily listed as language courses there are 
commonly to be found objectives which are not of the language- 
arts type. There is at least grammar, or the study of language 
structure, and some portions of the literature. In foreign lan- 
guage in the high school all three elements are likely to be found 
mingled in the same courses, except that the literature is not 
often found in the first course. The objective of the school either 
announced or implied is learning to use the foreign tongue. 

Now here are three widely different types of objectives, each 
of which if brought into the same learning situation with the 
others tends at the best to throw the purpose of teaching out of 
focus and at the worst to set up inhibitions. 

We have discussed elsewhere the legitimate and proper func- 
tion of grammar as part of the educational equipment of the in- 
dividual in any language. See chapter xiii, page 216. If it is 
desirable to give the learner that independent critical command 
of the language which grammar implies, then let us organize a 
course in the essentials of grammar and offer it to pupils who 
have acquired the reading adaptation. 

Much the same sort of situation arises in the case of litera- 
ture, using the term “literature” in the sense of belles lettres. 


446 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


The proper educational objective here is the cultivation of taste 
through the formation of adaptations of the appreciation type. 
Now most such reading material is a highly developed type of 
expression which makes of it very poor assimilative material for 
the purpose of attaining the reading objective. If the pupil gets 
the sense, he must read laboriously with much analysis and fre- 
quent use of the lexicon for the interpretation of a highly devel- 
oped vocabulary. The result is the accumulation of the familiar 
inhibitions in reading and corresponding inhibitions on the ap- 
preciation side. The extreme illustration perhaps is the use of 
Caesar’s Commentaries and the orations of Cicero as vehicles 
for the development of reading power in Latin. We should hard- 
ly place the Civil War history of the Count of Paris in the sec- 
ond grade, or the speeches of Daniel Webster in the third grade, 
for the purpose of teaching children how to read English. Most 
high-school courses in French or German show much the same 
kind of misinterpretation of the pedagogical situation, though 
perhaps not to an equivalent degree. The English department 
meets the situation by placing its belles-lettres courses at levels 
which are much later than that of the attainment of the reading 
adaptation. Indeed it goes farther than that, for it does not at- 
tempt to use a particular piece of literature in its courses until 
the pupils are presumably sufficiently mature, both intellectual- — 
ly and socially, to form the adaptations which the literature im- 
plies. | 
In like manner, the best modern schools do not introduce 
the study of English grammar at all until after the pupil has ac- | 
quired the art of expressing himself in his mother-tongue. | 
An element of confusion is sometimes introduced in think- 
ing out language-arts pedagogy through confounding reading © 
which implies other learning products than those of the lan- — 
guage arts with the fundamental reading adaptation. For in- © 
stance, here is a pupil who reads readily books in elementary 
science and he is adjudged therefore to be a better reader than 
his schoolmate who reads readily only matter which is entirely — 









LANGUAGE ARTS 447 


non-technical. Not so: the first has simply acquired a set of un- 
derstandings which enable him to get the sense of the science, 
while the second has not done so. There is not necessarily any 
difference in their reading ability as such, either in respect to the 
fundamental adaptation or in respect to such associated skills as 
high rate and assimilative power. No amount of training in 
reading, apart from training in the subject matter read, would 
improve the specific reading ability of the second. The compari- 
son will stand for many similar instances found in the language- 
arts field both in the secondary school and in the university. 

A student, for instance, has learned to read German. He 
now has occasion to read scientific German, in the field, let us 
say, of chemistry. He does not succeed, and either one of two 
reasons may be the explanation. The more likely explanation is 
that he does not know his chemistry with a clarity which is suf- 
_ ficient to enable him to read into the text the unfamiliar phrase- 
ology. If he knows his German, he of course needs an illuminat- 
ing glossary of the technical terms and phraseology in their Ger- 
man use. In either case, the problem is a chemistry problem and 
not a language problem. 
| Similarly, a student may have the undoubted ability to read 

French. He presently finds himself in a course which requires 
the reading of diplomatic documents. He soon encounters the 
same difficulty which his fellow-student has found in chemistry; 
he is not sufficiently familiar with the course content even in 
English and he probably lacks the needful glossary. 

Turning to the field of written and spoken English expres- 
sion, we encounter the same set of phenomena. In a specialized 
field, the student stumbles in the use of the appropriate terminol- 
ogy. The young pupil in the secondary period is prone to at- 
tempt to meet the difficulty by the use of such expressions as 
“that thing” and “that way.” The older pupil who is suddenly 
introduced to a course in which the books use the severely tech- 
nical terminology at first balks and then falls back on the lesson- 
learning attitude. 


448 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


We cite these illustrations primarily for the purpose of mak- 
ing clear the distinction between what is a language-arts prob- 
lem pure and simple and situations in which a language-arts 
problem is complicated with subject matter and study problems. 
The practical solution, however, can be summarized by pointing 
out the principle that teachers of science type subjects have lan- 
guage-arts problems in the whole field of the development of 
study abilities, problems which they can solve and which can- 
not be solved economically and satisfactorily by giving special 
courses, either in ‘‘reading science” in the elementary school or 
junior high school or in “scientific German” or “diplomatic 
French” in the university. If a foreign language is concerned, 
the problem becomes one of specialized thinking in the foreign 
tongue. The appropriate course to take is to recognize the dis- 
tinction between general education and specialized training and 
to see that all pupils in the secondary period have an abundance 
of material in science type subjects in which the use of profes- 
sional terminology is reduced to the lowest terms consistent with 
clear thinking. 

FUNDAMENTALS OF TECHNIQUE 

Before going on to the consideration of the specific tech- 
nique in the language-arts field most commonly found in the 
secondary school, it is perhaps well to survey the learning proc- 
ess in its more general aspects, and particularly with reference 
to the peculiar importance of the law of initial diffuse move- 
ments. 

The principle seems to apply in this type more critically 
than in any other, save perhaps that of pure practice. That is to 


say, the learner acquires the learning products most economical- — 
ly, most efficiently, and most abidingly by keeping his mind off | 
his mistakes in the early stages of the learning process. What is 


meant can perhaps be made clear by concrete illustrations. 

The infant in acquiring some of the early and fundamental 
adaptations is perhaps more definitely in a “state of nature” 
than is ever the case in the schoolroom. Inhibitions are not set 


Le v 


LANGUAGE ARTS 449 


up, simply because the parent cannot make her instructions reg- 
ister even if she desires to do so. The baby in his thirteenth or 
fourteenth month who is arriving at the walking adaptation 
would not heed specific instructions from his mother even if she 
were to give them. No use to try to teach him to ‘“‘walk right 
from the beginning” by pointing out his mistakes. He goes his 
own way anyhow and achieves a very satisfactory success. He 
creeps about the floor in his own individual way. He draws him- 
self up to a chair and goes stumbling about in an unco-ordinated 
sort of fashion for some days, every muscle in his body discharg- 
ing itself quite without regard to its ultimate place in the neuro- 
muscular complex which we call walking. Little by little the 
random movements disappear and in a few weeks he toddles 
about the house in substantial independence. He has reached 
his walking adaptation. As body and limbs grow stronger, he 
comes to exercise an agility at which most older people marvel 
and which they perhaps envy. 

So it is with talking, eight months or so later. After a long 
period of babbling which is perhaps little more than the reflexes 
of auditory sensations, he comes to the point at which he is con- 
- scious of a simple message which he wishes to communicate. An 
incoherent stream of sound issues. We are conscious that he is 
trying to say something. He is encouraged and little by little his 
messages begin to take shape and eventually his verbless sen- 
tences appear, sufficient for present needs. He uses the infant 
patois or baby talk, but still he can talk. As experience expands 
and the content which he wishes to communicate becomes itself 
more complex his means of communication keep pace. His skill 
on the level of the talking adaptation improves. Under favor- 
able conditions it continues to improve into middle life or later. 

Now, if we could divest ourselves of our own experience in 
this kind of learning and view it in a purely objective way, as 
perhaps a visitor from another planet might view it, we should 
probably be astonished at the learning which the infant achieves 


450 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


and the brief time in which he achieves it. No courses of three 
or four or five years for learning to talk, but rather scarcely 
more than as many months, after the learning process as such» 
has actually begun. 

A somewhat similar situation seems to have existed in for- 
mer days when white men were frequently thrown into contact 
with savage peoples. Here was foreign-language learning with- 
out either grammar or beginner’s book indeed. Nevertheless, 
the castaway sailor or the lonely missionary contrived to learn 
the language. Much the same situation reversed was found 
when the stranger in our midst came among us with a tongue as 
wholly unknown to us as ours was to him. No interpreter and 
yet in a surprisingly short time he learned our language. How 
clearly there comes back to some of us his painful and incom- — 
prehensible attempts, his later grotesque misapprehensions of 
single words and his perversion of all grammatical principles. 
Nevertheless, he contrived to make his meaning perfectly clear 
and eventually to carry on a fluent conversation of his own kind. 
If possessed of native sense and taste and aspiration, he some- 
times came to speak a pure English which most of us might ad- 
mire. 

In all of these situations we find two elements standing out 
clearly. There is always a message to be communicated or re- 
ceived. The message is central in the learner’s mind. He be- 
comes totally regardless of the manner of communication, as 
long as he eventually succeeds in conveying his meaning or re- 
ceiving the meaning which he wishes to get from others. The 
learning process is a series of random movements, hit or miss, in 
which the hits gradually come to exceed the misses and the lat- 
ter finally disappear altogether. Sometime during the struggle 
of hits and misses, a feeling of confidence in language use comes 
and thenceforth learning is simply a matter of the final elimina- 
tion of misses, that is to say, the acquisition of skill or facility. 
Such is the essence of language-arts pedagogy. 





LANGUAGE ARTS Ast 


The principle is applied in the primary school in teaching 
little children to read.* 

First of all, the children are exposed to an abundance of op- 
portunities to read. The playhouse has its signboard. The new 
cart has its descriptive label. The sitting hen has the briefest of 
stories stenciled above her nest. And so the children become in- 
timately familiarized with the fact that there is a symbolic lan- 
guage equivalent to their own spoken language. Presently a few 
of the children begin to announce that “they know what that 
says.” A class is now formed. The teacher recalls some vivid 
experience which all have recently had, and she presently gets a 
sentence from one of the children suitable for her purpose. The 
sentence is printed on the board or on a stencil and the children 
become aware of the symbolism. In a few days, a succession of 
these sentences appears, making a complete story. The children 
thus become familiar with the notion of a continuous discourse 
in. print, and eager to get more of this printed talk. They may 
be seen at odd moments practicing with the material. For some 
time it is mere memory process. They know that somewhere 
there is a sentence which says thus and so, but their eyes are apt 
to be on any other as they repeat the sentence they have in mind. 
In a brief time, however, they follow down the chart or board with 
clear and correct recognition. In three months or less they have 
built up a use vocabulary in which words have been learned from 
reading thoughts, instead of sentence meanings being put to- 
gether out of words learned elsewhere. Books are now placed in 
their hands, but, instead of being read in oral exercises, content 
reading is induced by asking questions about the meaning. If 
the children were asked the exact meaning of sentences in terms 
of the words used, the response would be meager. If they are 
asked to tell the story, the response is good and it becomes bet- 
ter with practice. The law of initial diffuse movements is in op- 
eration. There presently comes a time when the pupil becomes 


1See Hardy: Teachers’ Manual to Child’s Own Way Series. 


452 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


word conscious, but instead of being set up artificially in the be- 


ginning, the mental attitude comes naturally with the inclina- — 


tion to eliminate the last of the random movements. It seems to 
correspond to the period when the baby ceases to toddle and be- 
gins to walk. Unless circumstances prolong this period and 
thereby cause arrested development, the learner quickly passes 


it and reaches rapidly to the reading adaptation. When he seeks 


the book table and becomes absorbed in a book, it is pretty like- 
ly to be true that the reading adaptation has become established. 
This point can be verified, of course, by noting the eye move- 
ments which are characteristic of true reading. 

As soon as the pupil*has indubitably reached the reading 
adaptation, he is released from further class work, unless and 
until observation of his silent reading suggests some defect 


which needs correcting. He reads abundantly books of his own © 


choosing. For the best results, a reading room or children’s li- 
brary is provided, in charge of a teacher interested in children’s 


reading and versed in the pedagogy of reading. Likewise, the © 


teachers of geography, history, and other content subjects do not 
forget that an essential part of their own technique is the devel- 


opment of study ability and study ability is very largely profi- — 


ciency in reading in special fields. Laboratory studies of chil- 
dren’s subsequent development in reading ability show that with 
rare exceptions they continue to improve in comprehension, rate 
of reading, and proficiency in oral reading, in spite of the fact 
that they do not meet in a reading class for perhaps three or 
even four years prior to the end of the sixth grade. 


This condensed description of method in primary reading © 
will stand as the type for any sort of language-arts learning — 


whatsoever. It fits the foreign language in the high school or 


college, or in adult evening classes, the learning of vocal music, — 
the piano, violin, or other form of musical expression; and it © 


fits the acquisition of ability in English composition. 










a 


CHAPTER XXV 
TECHNIQUE IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE 


specific fields, the point of primary and fundamental im- 

portance is a clear perception of the objective and an effec- 
tive resolution on the part of the teacher to keep the objective 
in mind to the exclusion of cross purposes. The objective in this 
case is the reading or the speaking adaptation in the foreign 
tongue. 

The method can be summarized as learning to read thought 
content by abundant experience in reading thought content from 
the beginning. It utilizes images set up by the use of voice, ear, 
eye, and hand, applied to the symbols in which the thought con- 
tent is expressed, and trains them to work effectively together 
in conveying to the mind intelligible and reliable impressions 
gathered from the printed page or the spoken word. 


|: this, as in all our chapters on the technique of teaching in 


FIRST STAGE 


The beginners’ class enters the room without books, papers, 
or notes. It has no assignment and receives none, and such con- 


_tinues to be the case for many months. The teacher speaks in 


the foreign tongue some command such as “Open the window.” 
He repeats it several times, with such gestures as may furnish 
the needed cue, until he gets some pupil to carry out the order. 


‘He continues to repeat until the class as a whole reacts satisfac- 


torily. He then writes the command on the board and awaits the 
response in the same manner. Finally he has one pupil after 
another practice the commands, calling upon other pupils by 
name to carry them out, using both oral and written commands. 
Pupils are encouraged to “let themselves go” without self-con- 


453 


454 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


sciousness of their awkward vocalization of the strange tongue. 
No rules for vocalization are given: the pupils simply imitate the 
teacher. This process continues until the class has acquired an 
initial sense of the use of the language as a vehicle of expres- 
sion. Each day, the significant words and phrases are used again 
but varied in their combinations. For instance, “Open the win- 
dow” becomes ‘‘Open the door.” We use the term “initial sense” 
advisedly, for, while every pupil in the class may know perfectly 
well that as a matter of fact the language which he is beginning 
to learn is used for the expression of thought, such information 
is very different from the sense of reality which comes from ac- 
tual use. Furthermore, the pupil is launched on his career of 
reading thought content directly instead of being allowed to be- 
come accustomed to the notion that language learning is a mat- 
ter of learning words and forms in isolation and afterward put- 
ting them together in discourse which has a meaning. The proc- 
ess of building up the eye-voice-ear-hand connections is begun 
at once. 

In this early stage, the executed command is ideally the best 
device in any language, for it gives the best assurance that the 
pupil reacts to the sense of a full sentence instead of focalizing 


upon the meaning of separate words. It can be used in an an- 
cient language like Latin as effectively as in a modern language ~ 


like French, provided the teacher himself has a sufficient com- 
mand of the ancient tongue. Such is not often the case. Further, 
the pupils are not likely to have occasion to read Latin which 


deals with current affairs expressed in modern thought content. 


Consequently, even if they should build up a Latin usage sense, 


drawn from the physical classroom itself, let us say, it would be r 


likely to be expressed in terms which would later find no place 
in their reading. Hence, the modification described below. 
Instead of the command used in a modern language, sen- 


tences on the board are used. The board is kept perfectly 


free from all other work which might enter the fringe of con- 


sciousness and distract the attention with the effect of forming 


Se ee ee ee ee ae ae ee mae | 




























TECHNIQUE IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE 455 


a blurred and vague visual image. The teacher secures perfect 
attention, saying “I am going to place on the board a Latin sen- 
tence which means ‘the man is good.’”’ An instant of pause, 
holding the class, and then the sentence is rapidly written in large 
and clearly formed letters and promptly erased. He then utters 
the sentence aloud two or three times, places it upon the board 
and erases it in the same manner as before. Next a pupil is 
called upon to read the sentence in Latin and then several pupils 
in succession; finally the class in unison. The initial sentence is 
then varied into puer est bonus, puella est bona, cibum est bon- 
um, homo fuit bonus, puer est validus, etc. In this way a usage 
sense of words and forms is built up, but the forms are always 
sensed in their meaning in the sentence and not as isolated and 
abstract words. The teacher must use much greater precaution 
than is necessary in the modern language command step to pre- 
vent the pupils’ building up an initial habit of looking for word 
meanings rather than sentence meanings. If the teacher pro- 
nounces the sentence slowly and artificially word by word in- 
stead of reading it aloud, this is just what will happen. 

A variant on this procedure is to use flash cards on which the 
sentences as used are printed. Each card is then displayed for 
not quite a second, and as it disappears the class gives the Eng- 
lish meaning. Exercises of this sort are used day after day until 
all pupils except the identified problem cases fall into the swing. 

Whether the teaching is in a modern European language 
like French or German or an ancient language like Greek or 
Latin, this first-stage work is continued until the pupils react 
readily to thoughts which can be expressed in short sentences, 
even though the sentence itself be complex. They will have built 
up a considerable use capital of words, forms, and simple syn- 
tactical constructions. 

SECOND STAGE 

When the possibilities of the first stage have been exhausted, 
as they should be after two or three weeks at the most, longer 
paragraphs are placed on the board. ‘Placed on the board” is 


456 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


used only in a general sense. The board will be used a great deal 
at first. Afterward, mimeographed material, or readers if suit- 
able ones can be found, may be used instead of the board. It is 
imperative, however, that the use of books or mimeographed 
material shall not lead to home or out-of-class assignments. The 
inevitable result with most pupils would be lesson-learning. Ii 
pupils exhibit a genuine interest and wish for such material, by 
all means they should be allowed to have it, but not in any case 
material which is to be used presently in the class. Such pupils 
may well be loaned the simplest of books in the foreign tongue. 
If they are really interested, these will best meet the need. If 
they are concerned only with lesson-learning, the books will 
not gratify the desire. In modern language, the paragraph 
thought content should be something which is absolutely famil- 
iar to the class. In Latin this is not so easy, for the reason ad- 
duced above. However, the content in the latter should be at the 
least wholly intelligible, eliminating all reference to such strange 
terms as the names of Caesar’s military diplomats. When the 
paragraph is on the board, the teacher reads it aloud, distinctly, 
but not as word by word pronunciation. Perhaps it is read sev- 
eral times, the class is called upon to read in unison, and finally 
several individuals are called upon. The teacher asks questions, 
first about the salient meanings and then questions touching 
remoter meanings. Of course it is an advantage to have ques- 
tions so couched that they can be asked in the foreign tongue 
and similarly answered. Language development will in that way 
be more rapid, and the class will gain confidence. It is not, how- 
ever, essential to the principles of the teaching involved as such. 
The matter of critical importance is that there shall be no trans- 
verbalizing the passage, or translation in the ordinary school 
use of that term. 

The process is continued until-the class has built up a use 
vocabulary of perhaps 200 common words and a use familiar- 
ity with the most common word forms and syntactical peculiari- 
ties. By actual count, some pupils in the third month of such 


TECHNIQUE IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE 487 


exercise work as that of this stage and the preceding were found 
to be using in written papers (see below) from 250 to 275 dif- 
ferent words and word forms. The principle to be observed here 
is that such word meanings and form and syntax meanings 
should be developed slowly in proportion to the amount of con- 
tent read. That is to say, the same meaning should appear over 
and over again in the paragraphs placed upon the board, and, 
while new meanings either of word or form or syntax should ap- 
pear daily, they should not appear in such abundance as to in- 
duce the class to begin the memorization of such isolated items. 
Similarly, the class should not be required or encouraged to 
make lists of isolated meanings to be memorized. All the teach- 
er’s technique should be focused upon getting the class to read 
content and to pick up word and form meanings from the con- 
text instead of in isolation. 

It is hard for the teacher who is habituated to the grammat- 
ical approach to believe that it is at all possible for pupils to un- 
derstand the meaning of a form unless that form has been prac- 
ticed in isolation until the pupil has a visual image of its place 
in the list of its kindred. It is still harder for him to believe that 
the pupil can manage a meaning expressed, let us say, in Latin 
indirect discourse, unless he has studied the principles of indi- 
rect discourse and then learned to make the application. Never- 
theless, the pupil does so in practice, with on the whole less diffi- 
culty than his fellow-pupil at the same stage of advancement 
who has been trained in the grammatical principles involved and 
who has memorized all the paradigms which he has occasion to 
use. He does so because he is learning according to the princi- 
ples which apply to effective learning in this type. See pupils’ 
written passage quoted below, page 463. 

A few days prior to writing this chapter, the writer saw two 
Latin classes on the seventeenth day after the beginning of the 
first course. One section read a long board full of paragraphs 
with little difficulty. The other was handed a new volume of 
Latin stories and in a few minutes, less than ten, extracted the 


458 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


meaning from the first two pages. The process was in no sense 
different from what would be taking place about six weeks later, 
in the first-grade reading classes, with children who had begun 
to learn to read their mother-tongue on the same day on which 
the Latin sections had begun to learn to read Latin. 

Nevertheless, these Latin beginners had not completed the 
stage which we are now considering. They should go on building 
up their use meanings to the point at which, when they take the 
printed volume, they will read it with reasonable readiness, a 
readiness such that they will not be encouraged to begin the 
process of deciphering, such that the sense of new word meaning 
will tend to come from the context read. This prolongation of 
the second stage implies the preparation of a good deal of as- 
similative material in which the gradient from a meager usage 
vocabulary to one which is considerable is slow and easy. There 
is little material ready-made for this purpose. The teacher can 
best prepare such material himself, and that takes time. Never- 
theless, the accumulation of material year by year will in a very 
few years give an abundant quantity. The defect in most be- 
ginner’s readers or first books is that the gradient referred to 
is much too steep. New words and forms appear so rapidly that 
the learner does not assimilate in the manner required by lan- 
guage-arts principles. He becomes swamped in the mass of new 
isolated learnings and promptly falls back on the process of 
memorizing, deciphering and transverbalizing. 

Unlike the situation found in the assimilation period of the 
science type, every day’s teaching is also a day of testing. The 
teacher can become very sensitive in his rapport with the actual 
progress of a language class. Reteaching becomes a process of 
turning back to the reading of material at a lower point on the 
gradient of difficulty until the class catches its stride again. Or 
it may mean lingering at the point now reached and supplying 
an abundance of new material in which the word and form 
meanings that have been used are kept but no new meanings are 








TECHNIQUE IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE 459 


added for a few days. The critical points in the reteaching are 
two. 

First, the teacher should avoid isolating a new meaning 
whether of word, form, or syntax and studying it by itself out of 
context. On the other hand, it may often be well, in the case of 
a meaning which is difficult to catch, to fall back on first-stage 
principles and develop the usage from sentences at the board. 


TABLE XIV 





Second, it is imperative that the teacher shall “follow the 
mind” of the class and of every individual in it, shall learn to 
sense without formal testing whether or not the class is learning. 

Nevertheless, it is essential to careful teaching that there 
shall at intervals be set a formal test for the purpose of more 
deliberately taking stock of progress. In this manner. 

A selection of considerable length is chosen, long enough to 
give opportunity for the inclusion of most of the vocabulary and 


460 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


form and syntax meanings used to date, but not of progressive 
order of difficulty. A series of twenty to thirty questions is then 
carefully framed to cover the thought content. The pupils write 
answers to the questions, the papers are collected and studied, 
not for the purpose of scoring but for the purpose of extracting 
such light on the progress of the learning as they may contain. © 
The charted results of such a test may perhaps look something 
like the exhibit in Table XIV. Right responses are indicated by 
—}; wrong ones by X. 


90-100 Per Cent L7//TTTTTTTTTTTTTTT TTT THT TTT ITLL] 


80- 89 Per Cent [TT/ 
70-79 PerCent //////7/ 
60- 69 Per Cent LITT TL) 


10- 19 Per Cent (777 


te Ne 


FIG. 9 


Let us see what we can make out of the exhibit, bearing in 
mind that we are interested in its disclosures as to the progress 
of the class, and of the individual pupils, toward the reading 
adaptation and not in the relative values of the scores made by 
the different pupils. 

First of all, we note that F and G have reacted correctly to 
every item they have tried. We know them for painstaking but 
rather slow workers. The evidence of learning in their cases is 
as good as that in the cases of D and O who have tried every 
item of the test and have reacted to all correctly. The suggestion 
that F and G might have failed in subsequent items if they had » 
tried them is no better than the suggestion that D and O might 
have failed on items 25-30 inclusive if such had been included. 
The evidence may disclose that these two pupils have wasteful 
learning habits, but it does not disclose that they do not learn. 
Accordingly, we shall first consider the per cents of rights, and 





TECHNIQUE IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE 461 


we shall throw these into a distribution for its disclosures touch- 
ing the learning in the class as a whole. (See Figure 9.) 

On the whole the disclosure is that the daily follow-up and 
control technique have been fairly good. If it had been otherwise, 
the distribution would have looked more like Figure ro. 

We note that there is a wholly disproportionate number of 
failures on item 10. Probably the question was a “misfire.” If 
so, a little reconsideration will be likely to disclose the difficulty. 
If we decide that the question was in fact of that character, then 
four more pupils are added to our too per cent list. If, on the 
other hand, we can find no good 
reason why pupils should not have LIL] 
reacted correctly to the question, LZ/7/////7// 
we must conclude that it points out (777777777777 TTT TTT 
a region in which teaching is called 
for. Al 

Questions 5-7, 9, I2, 13, I5, 

17, 19-25 indicate regions for re- CZ// 
teaching, not, be it observed, with 

reference to the questions themselves, but with respect to the 
word, form, or syntax meanings with which they are associated. 

Now, turning to the pupils, A, E, K, and L evidently need 
some special corrective teaching. C and M may or not. Indi- 
vidual conference will disclose. 

Pupil H is a problem case for study. It is early in the course 
yet and we may be able to find and correct the obstacles which 
are hindering him or we may find he has some deeply rooted im- 
pediment which will make it undesirable for him to continue in 
the study of language. 

We now have definite guidance for continuing our teaching 
intelligently. 

Throughout the first two stages, it is imperative that very 
high control technique shall be secured. Always essential, it is 
particularly so in language teaching at this point. If the precau- 
tion is not observed, the result will be a distribution like the sec- 


FIG. 10 


462 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


ond above shown. So long as that type of distribution appears, 
the class as a whole is not making progress. In time, one individ- 
ual after another will join the “passing grade” fraternity in one 
form or another, leaving only a few who really learn.. 

As soon as a sufficient use vocabulary has been built up, the 
pupils should be encouraged to begin writing, not exercises, but 
continuous stories of their own. Volunteers at first are induced 
to ‘plunge into” discourse and write as well as they can. They 
are told not to mind making mistakes. Of course they will make 
them: that is the way we learn a language. The teacher who can 
induce the class to forget their schoolroom shyness and formal- 
ism will be surprised to see how soon pupils will be writing really 
acceptable French and Latin, with fewer blunders on the whole 
than those who come to this stage after months, and years even, 
of formalized exercise work, and with infinitely more zest and 
reality in their writing. There is on file in the laboratory an orig- 
inal Latin play written by a second-year girl who began this 
way. A tactful teacher who has the educational point of view 
and who can forget her prepossessions in favor of bringing all 
pupils into some sort of relationship to standard performance as 
contrasted with learning will soon have most of the class writing, 
each in his own way. There will be great differences in the excel- 
lence of the writing as performance, but as long as the pupil is 
writing and endeavoring to express himself, the quality of his 
performance as such is of minor importance. He is practicing 
in the use of the foreign tongue for the expression of thought, 
and that is the basis from which he builds up his language 
adaptations. Furthermore, he is not primarily learning to write 
but to read. Self-expression in the foreign tongue is an important 
part of the language-arts complex which manifests itself chiefly 
in reading. 

The following passage is the direct quotation of a paper in 


Latin submitted in a beginner’s class on November 3. The 


course began on October 3. The paper was therefore turned in 
on the 24th day. 





TECHNIQUE IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE 463 


MARCUS 

Marcus filius Publii est. Publius agricola est, sed Marcus in bello 
pugnat. Marcus arma multa habet. Arma scuta, gladii, galea sunt. 
Marcus in castris Romanis manet. Interdum aestate in oppido habi- 
tat. In tecto pulchro manet. Soror Marci Julia est. Marcus saepe 
Cornelian et Publium non videt. Cornelia mater Marci est. In casa in 
agra in insula parvo habitant. Ex fenestra tectis in oppido silvam 
vident. Noctu stellam claram et lunam pulchram vident. Vesperi 


Marcus puellis et puerorum fabulas narrat, set puerorum fabulas non 
amant. 

Marcus amicum habet qui nauta est. Nauta solus stat. Nauta 
Marcum exspectat, sed Marcus domi est. Marcus cum Helena est. 
Nautam non videt, et nauta miser et defessus est. Nauta ad tectum 
ambulat et Helenam videt. Helenam laudat, sed Marcus Helenam 
amat. Nauta Juliam, sororam Marci, amat. | 


The quotation is the paper just as it came to the teacher. It 
contains mistakes, but no more than would be likely to appear 
in a daily exercise which would ordinarily be set several months 
later. The mistakes are not important in view of the fact that 
the pupil is having an experience of using new words, forms, 
and syntactical principles to which she has become accustomed 
through use. She uses a genitive for the subject of a clause, but 
then in most sentences she uses the nominative. She uses the 
same genitive as an indirect object, but in the same construction 
she uses another word in its proper case. The pupil had never 
learned a word or form in isolation. She had never memorized 
a vocabulary or a paradigm. If she had ever heard of the accusa- 
tive case, she had picked it up elsewhere than in the class. She 
had not been told that the direct object is in the accusative, but 
had sensed the use from her board work. The discourse is not 
Ciceronian but it is Helen’s. She blunders in Latin, but she still 
blunders as yet in English. Of a collection of 37 first year papers, 
representing 19 different pupils, dating from November to 
March of the first year, the paper quoted is one of the best, but 
it is by no means the best, nor does it represent the climax of 
expressional capacity among these pupils. After eleven days 


464 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


more practice, another pupil passed in a paper of more than 
twice the length and revealing much more complexity of expres- 
sion. The paper last named is flawless except for one misuse of 
a case form. The shortest paper has 47 words and 9 errors, and 
this is about the poorest in the lot. 

The reader will thus be able to see more concretely what is 
meant by early writing and to realize that the pupil can in fact 
be led into the stride which means writing and not mere exercise 
work. If it can be done with Latin, it can the more readily, 
effectively, and profitably be done with a modern language. 
And so it is. 

THIRD STAGE 

When the class has accumulated a stock of word, form, and 
syntax uses sufficient for rapid book reading, the second stage 
fades into the stage of book reading. If the usage meanings 
which form the basis of training in the second stage have been 
systematically related to those found in the books which it is 
intended to use first, of course the gradient from the second 
stage into the third will be the more easily negotiated. 

So far as is possible, the books selected for the third stage 
should be real content and not merely school exercise books. 
Such are comparatively easy to find in German, they are less 
frequent in French and Spanish, and rare indeed in Latin. It 
may perhaps be suggested in passing that here is a rich field of 
service for American teachers. There is needed a list of titles, 
particularly in French, Spanish, and Latin, reaching to many 
times the number which are now available. These books will 
have to be made. One of the most effective types of such books 
has been found to be stories which, though not translations, 
are based upon stories with which children are familiar in their 
mother-tongue. An example is Miss Perley’s Que fait Gaston. 

The book in the hands of the class, the procedure is essen- 
tially the same as that followed in the second stage. A selection 
of considerable length, a page or more, is read silently by the 
class. The pupils are told first to read rapidly, not pausing for 


TECHNIQUE IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE 465 


unfamiliar words or obscure passages, and they are assured that 
even on the first reading the larger meanings will begin to ap- 
pear, though perhaps vaguely and uncertainly. They next read 
silently again, not sentence by sentence, but perhaps paragraph 
by paragraph, or it may be by groups of sentences. The meaning 
begins to clear up and in this way the pupil learns how to search 
for the sense of the longer passages. Such is supervised study in 
the language arts. As different pupils reach what appears to 
them to be satisfactory apprehension of the meaning of the se- 
lection read, the teacher is notified; and, when most of the class 
have finished, the teacher quizzes on the meaning. By the end of 
this period, the troublesome words and other usages are pretty 
likely to be brought to the teacher’s attention, and these are 
then taken up and explained. 

“Explained” is used advisedly: the English equivalent of a 
meaning is not sufficient. In a very true sense, there are no such 
equivalents, for any word takes on its meaning from the context. 
Even in the mother-tongue a given word has materially different 
meanings in different contexts. For instance, the word “man” 
may mean simply a male as distinguished from a female. It may 
mean an adult as distinguished from a boy. It may mean a per- 
son who has the attributes of virility which we like to associate 
with mature manhood in contrast with others who have them 
not. And it may have a variety of other meanings. 

In this way, every class period is a teaching test and an index 
to the teacher as to the reteaching required. 

Some passages encountered will contain constructions which 
will clear up later. These the teacher passes by. More often the 
teacher will realize the need of reteaching of specific usages and 
then a brief period is taken for the purpose, using the principles 
of the second stage. Some individuals will appear as problem 
cases, needing individual corrective work, and these we shall 
discuss later. 

As in the second stage, there is need of testing periodically 
for more exact evidence than the day-to-day test will give. And 


466 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


so the test is framed essentially on the principles of that already 
discussed, and interpreted in the same manner. The difference 
between the two is one of degree rather than one of kind; the 
present test is focused on a more highly developed discourse. 
The reteaching, however, is of the same kind. If the class as a 
whole is vague in its capacity to interpret the printed page, the 
indications are prima facie that the gradient is becoming too 
steep. We turn back to easier reading. If there is little or no 
failure, the reading is pushed on rapidly to a region in which the 
gradient is more steep. The problem cases are noted and studied. 
It is perhaps unnecessary to warn the reader that the initial pre- 
sumption of poor test results is that there has been neglect of 


control technique, that the teacher has allowed various members 


of the class to drop out of the learning situation. Hence, the sys- 
tematic and careful teacher endeavors to scrutinize this aspect 
of his work first in a severe self-examination, before considering 
his language-arts problem as such. 

Throughout the reading stage, the free writing is kept up. 
The several pupils if skilfully handled will develop writing pow- 
er as practice goes on and as the character of the reading dis- 
course develops. 

Pronunciation and phonetics ——The reader has doubtless in 
mind the query, what about pronunciation, vocalization, pho- 
netics? The point requires some discussion. 

It is very easy here to mistake the primary objective, and in 
that way to waste time and to work at cross purposes. It is per- 
haps unfortunate that many people judge a child’s ability to 
read his mother-tongue by his efficiency or fluency in oral read- 
ing. A considerable degree of skill in oral reading is entirely 
compatible with very poor proficiency in real reading for con- 
tent. Similarly, many people think that a good command of for- 
eign language accent is synonymous with command of the lan- 
guage itself. It does not follow. 

Good oral command may very well be an objective in itself, 
apart from and in addition to the reading objective. If so, then 





ae tae, ee = ee See 


TECHNIQUE IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE 467 


the skilfully devised methods of the phonetician are not only 
helpful but indispensable. In that case, not only is it desirable 
that the pupil shall learn the use of a visual phonetic alphabet, 
but it is necessary that he shall be drilled in vocal exercises until 
his vocal apparatus as a whole becomes adjusted to the new uses. 
Such practice is no part of the language-arts procedure, but an 
instance of pure practice teaching of the first sub-type. It may 
be desirable, and often is, but the teacher must not confuse this 
objective with the reading objective. 

On the other hand, vocalization seems to be intimately a 
_ contribution to the acquisition of language-use sense. Reading 
probably always involves that subconscious utterance which is 
sometimes called inner speech and which seems to be bound up 
fundamentally with the thought process itself. Competent gram- 
marians say that many forms which enter into the grammatical 
structure have a phonetic significance. Hence, all through the 
three stages which we have studied, practice in oral reading, 
provided it is not practice in mere word pronunciation, is a great 
help, and perhaps an essential in acquiring that language sense 
which ultimately leads to the reading adaptation. In so far as 
the use of phonetic devices is an aid in achieving this purpose of 
oral reading, they should be used, but they should not be allowed 
in this present connection to become an end in themselves. 

In the first stage in modern language, there is a good deal of 
natural practice in vocalization. High-school pupils, at the aver- 
age age of fifteen, will not prove so adaptable as younger chil- 
dren at the age of nine or younger. Their vocal habits have be- 
come more firmly established. But they are nevertheless capable 
of learning effectively in the presence of a teacher who has good 
vocal command himself and is willing to exert such influence as 


~ hehas. 


In the second and third stages, there should be a great deal 
_ of reading aloud. It is not essential that all the content read 
shall first be vocalized. That would be wasteful of time, and it 
would quickly degenerate into routine. During the second stage, 


468 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


perhaps one of the board paragraphs will be read aloud daily. 
The teacher reads fluently and with natural expression, but not 
too rapidly. If the selection is Latin, he does not attempt to read 
with the clipping utterance of a modern language, but rather 
bears in mind that Latin is rich in vowel sounds, sonorous, and 
when well read has been said to suggest the tramp of the Roman 
legions. He then reads again, and the class follows him in uni- 
son, the teacher’s voice dominating. The purpose is not prima- 
rily to train pupils to read aloud but to give them practice in 
vocalizing a series of language meanings. As the class gains con- 
fidence, first one and then another is called upon to read orally. 
The reading pupil is not interrupted to call attention to false 
quantity or false phrasing. Rather when he has finished, the 
teacher reads over the defective passage and the pupil follows 
him. In the end, the proficient pupils may be called upon to lead 
the class in unison practice. In the third stage, the class will 
read aloud less frequently but the pupils are advised that read- 
ing aloud at home will help them greatly. Perhaps one day in 
five on the average is set apart for prolonged practice. 

Throughout the stage of silent reading, in class, from books, 
the emphasis is upon much reading rather than upon intensive 
reading. The teaching problem is to furnish the basis for so 
much practice with content which has a meaning and appeal of 
its own that the principle of initial diffuse movements may have 
full swing, under motivation which originates in interest in the - 
content read. The foregoing statement of principle should of 
course not be taken as advice to encourage or accept negligent, 
or half-hearted, or effortless reading. An essential part of the 
teacher’s task is always tc be on the hunt for suitable reading 
material. 

Free reading.—Silent reading in class is, however, far from 
being the whole story. In addition, the class should be exposed 
to an abundance of free voluntary reading out of class. From the 
beginning of the course, in French for instance, long before pu- 
pils have made much progress in class reading, there should be 





TECHNIQUE IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE 469 


placed on a suitable table in the classroom a stock of French 
reading material, not school exercise books but books and peri- 
odicals made to be read. Such material should be really exposed 
to the class and the class to it. This does not happen when books 
are placed in rows in a bookcase, behind closed doors. Assum- 
ing the material to have been well selected and effectively dis- 
played, the teacher will find that first one and then another pupil 
is lingering about the book table and trying to read French. As 
the stage of silent reading from books comes on, pupils will often 
become enthusiastic in practicing their developing power to read, 
and the results will, of course, effectively reinforce the learning 
which takes place in class. As a matter of fact, children so 
treated do read in abundance, often an incredible amount. Now 
the formalist can quickly kill an incipient intellectual interest of 
this sort by becoming unduly critical as to whether the pupils are 
“reading thoroughly.” It is not essential that they should read 
thoroughly. If they are reading voluntarily what they desire to 
read, that is quite sufficient. The class silent reading under con- 
trol will care for that purpose of thorough reading which is wise 
thoroughness. Thoroughness, by the way, applies to mastery of 
the objective and not primarily to performance on exercise 
work. If the pupil reads for a book report, in most cases he will 
not read at all unless forced to do so. If he reads for credit, his 
reading must be checked up and the whole pedagogical purpose 
of free reading is lost sight of. On the other hand, free reading 
which is really free gives us the best possible evidence of ap- 
proaching mastery of the true learning product, because it en- 
ables us to observe the behavior of the pupil in an unsupervised 
and unconstrained situation. The pupil who is really reading 
will disclose to the teacher in manifold ways the reality and 
extent of his reading. He will wish to talk about his reading. He 
will bring difficulties to the teacher. He will talk over the book 
he would like to read next. 

In Latin, the problem of free reading is of course more diff- 
cult, for the reason that the material is much less abundant. 


470 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


Nevertheless, the industrious teacher will find a great deal. At 
least, copies of all the books which contain the material to be 
read later may be left on the table together with copies of the 
classics. 

The reading adaptation.—The stage of silent reading, with 
its associated writing and collateral free reading, is obviously the 
foundation of the first course, the course which leads to the read- 
ing adaptation. The time required may be six months, a year, 
two years. Time-to-be-spent is not the primary consideration, 
and it is certainly not a valid method of evaluating progress. 
After perhaps six months, the teacher begins to observe the free 
reading habits of pupils more closely, with the purpose of watch- 
ing for signs of approach of the reading adaptation. Presently, 
he notes that a certain pupil becomes absorbed in books contain- 
ing non-technical discourse of ordinary difficulty, the standard 
perhaps of a popular story written for the average reader in a 
modern language. The pupil shows little of the puzzled brow 
which is associated with deciphering, he seeks not for the lexicon 
nor for annotations. His features show much the same play of 
interest which is exhibited when he reads a similar English selec- 
tion. We observe him as he turns the pages. He does so at inter- 
vals corresponding rather closely to what would be the case if he 
were reading his mother-tongue. As he turns the page, his eyes 
seek the upper lines and he reads on. He does not pause and 
gaze about the room as though he were summoning resolution 
for a fresh start. If we profile his application for twenty minutes, 
the result is a straight line with occasional momentary distrac- 
tions. After several observations of this sort we feel confident 
that the pupil is reading. We may assure ourselves by observing 
the eye movements on one or more occasions. If they show the 
characteristic reading fixations, our first impressions are con- 
firmed. We are further assured when we note that all the recent 
reading tests have shown few if any mistakes. The pupil has fin- 
ished the course and is excused from further attendance in class, 
but he is admonished to come to the teacher periodically to re- 


TECHNIQUE IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE 471 


port what free reading he is doing and otherwise to confirm the 
teacher’s judgment. If he proposes to go on with the language 
and a section in a grammar course is open, he is allowed to enter 
that. If no section is open, he waits for one. Other pupils will 
require a longer period of development before the objective is 
attained. A month later, two or three perhaps have mastered. 
Later still others; and perhaps some will run over into the second 
year. And then there are the non-learners, subjects for special 
study. 
PROBLEM CASES 


The slow learner or the non-learner in a foreign language 
presents many of the same learning maladies which we have 
found in our study of the assimilation period in the science type. 
In some respects, he presents difficulties which are peculiarly 
language difficulties. Some obstinate cases for which remedial 
work is indicated in the sciences are hardly worth either the 
pupil’s or the school’s time and energy in the languages. After 
all, the learning oi a foreign language is the learning of an art 
which may contribute to the fundamental adjustments to envi- 
ronment which we call education but it is not itself one of those 
adjustments. The pupil may use French, for instance, as the key 
to whole storehouses of assimilative material in the arts and sci- 
ences and social intercourse, to which his mother-tongue does 
not give him access, and that is valuable, but it is not determina- 
tive of the possibility of an educated existence in the world. 

Our first concern is the slow language learner who is natively 
such and not slow merely because of lack of application or some 
other correctable defect in his learning process. Such pupils 
make steady progress and ultimately achieve the learning prod- 
uct of the course as truly and as well as do the rapid learners. 
Their needs are ordinarily sufficiently well met by grouping the 
class in fast and slow sections. The problem of the rapid learner 
is much like that of his slow contemporary and is met in the 
same way. In order to provide for both types and the various 
gradations between, it is ideally desirable to have as many sec- 


472 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


tions in the reading course as the registration and administration 
exigencies will permit. Under these conditions, a new section of 
beginners is started every few months, let us say at least every 
semester. The pupil who then becomes identified as a rapid 
learner is placed in the fast section. In turn, he may in excep- 
tional cases find his way into a section which is still farther on 
the road toward the course objective. 

It is perhaps unnecessary to remind the reader that Course I, 
the reading course, is not conceived as a course which neces- 
sarily conforms to the traditions of the school calendar and is 
thereby limited to the academic year. Some pupils may reach 
the reading adaptation in less than a year and some may require 
nearer two years. The difference between June and September 
is not other than the difference between April and May, except 
that the long summer vacation may introduce a period of more 
or less loss of power gained. 

As in the case of supervised study in the science type, slug- 
gish learning or non-learning may be traceable to poor sustained 
application. The pupil is not natively slow, but he will not apply 
himself. He takes only a languid and perfunctory part in the 
essential class exercises. His mind is elsewhere. It is, of course, 
important that the teacher shall identify and correct his habit 
before accepting the pupil as a slow learner. Otherwise, he will 
presently prove to be simply the tail of the slowest section as he 
is now the trailer in a relatively fast section. It is a volitional 
problem which requires vigorous personnel work by the teacher 
and perhaps by the personnel staff of the school. 

The problem case may be a decipherer in his mother-tongue. 
See problem cases in science type assimilation period, chapter 
xvi, page 285. Conference with teachers of the content subjects 
will probably reveal that he is slow in the assimilation period 
and possibly a non-learner. His language-arts inhibitions will 
have carried over from English and he is not likely to learn a 
foreign language until they have been removed. Corrective or 
remedial treatment in the content subject, where such treatment 


TECHNIQUE IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE 473 


is essential, is likely to go far toward the removal of his inhibi- 
tions in foreign language. In most such instances, the case will 
probably be best handled by dropping the pupil out of foreign 
language until the defect has been remedied, allowing him to 
enter a section which begins later, perhaps the next year. 

Sensory difficulties with either vision or hearing are of 
course peculiarly inhibitory of progress in a language section. 
Of the same order is the case of the stammerer. Vision can usu- 
ally be remedied. The remedy of hearing defects is more diffi- 
cult. Stammering can now be corrected in many if not most 
cases. If the hearing is so defective as to amount to a serious 
impediment, the pupil would best be advised to forego learning 
to read a foreign language unless his need is imperative. Of 
course, he might still acquire the reading ability in a course con- 
ducted on special principles. The stammerer would similarly 
best be advised to drop the language course, at least until his 
defect has been remedied. 

Nutritional disorder and low level of general health of 
course present the same obstacles to language learning as they 
do throughout the process of education, and the same principle 
applies to the emotional cases discussed in chapter xvi. 

There remains that class of cases which are usually con- 
signed to the limbo of “‘no language ability.” Except in rare in- 
stances of peculiar language maladies which are likely to reveal 
themselves earlier in learning to read the mother-tongue if they 
appear at all, and subnormal children, it is perhaps doubtful that 
there is such a thing as congenital language inability. However 
that may be, it is certain that many cases usually classed as na- 
tive inability are in fact either correctable or remedial on some 
of the counts enumerated above or on others not listed, provided 
the pupil’s educational needs make it worth while to make the 
attempt. 

GRAMMAR 

Quite as important as the teaching itself is the sequence of 

courses provided. 


474 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


On the principles to which we adhere, the first course has | 
for its single objective ability to read. For different individuals, 
the time required for attaining the objective may differ greatly. 
As we have seen, objectives which require attention to isolated 
elements of discourse, if included in the course the objective of 
which is the use of discourse in its fundamental purpose, will 
tend to set up the language-arts inhibition and either slow up 
the learning process or divert it into a process of acquiring de- 
ciphering or transverbalizing ability. For many pupils, the read- 
ing course is all that is essential or even desirable. It is the for- 
eign language contribution to a general education. The pupil 
has now an implement which he can use in assimilating the con- 
tent of books and other material printed in language other than 
his own, and in securing a more immediate contact with the life 
and thought habits of alien races. 

On the other hand, it may be and frequently is desirable to 
utilize the foreign tongue for the purpose of reading at the level 
of advanced culture the literature of another people or for the 
purposes of exact scholarship. In either case a process of train- 
ing is called for, the objective of which is putting the student in 
possession of the refinements of meaning and an understanding 
of the principles of the discourse structure. Thus does he be- 
come capable of an independent and critical attitude toward the 
exact meaning of what he reads and what he writes. A distinct 
course in grammar is called for conducted on science type princi- 
ples. (See chapter xiii.) Similarly, a companion course is indi- 
cated, the purpose of which is essentially a study of the exact 
meanings of words as they appear in reading material selected 
for the purposes of the course. 

It should be noted, however, that both these courses, and 
especially the grammar course, have very practical and definite 
objectives. They are not offered for any vague developmental or 
disciplinary purposes. Grammar is learned in order that the 
pupil may acquire certain understandings of sentence structure 
which enable him to grasp more exactly the meaning of what he 





TECHNIQUE IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE 475 


reads, not for the purpose of giving him exercises in mental 
gymnastics. Thus the units in grammar can be more intelli- 
gently selected and focused upon the objective intended. If a 
given unit meets an essential need for the understanding of dis- 
course, it is used. Otherwise it is excluded as non-essential. 


THE LITERATURE 

Just as the course in grammar is necessarily distinct in 
method and in objective from the reading course, so the courses 
in literature proper are distinct from either. The objective in 
the reading course is a language-arts objective, in the grammar 
course it is of the science type, in literature it is an objective in 
appreciation. There is no pedagogical objection to the use of 
pieces of literature for silent reading purposes in the third stage 
of the reading course, provided the content has its own immedi- 
ate appeal. Such, however, is not often the case. It is notably 
far from true when the attempt is made to use the Commentaries 
of Julius Caesar and the Ovations of Cicero as assimilative ma- 
terial in developing a reading ability in Latin. Again pieces of 
literature may be used as basal material in studying the refine- 
ments of word and form and syntax meanings, but in that case 
the purpose is linguistic and not literary. 

In general, literature courses in modern languages should be 
conducted in accordance with the principles set forth for the 
conduct of English literature in the appreciation type, and we 
shall add no further comment. 

Courses in Latin literature, or Greek if it is still found in the 
school, present problems of their own, largely because there is 
not available a sufficient body of reading material for a low 
gradient leading through the reading course and into discourse 
of the complexity which the classical writers use. Hence, in the 
reading of Cicero, for instance, there is a language-arts problem 
as well as one in appreciation. For this reason, the following 


suggestions are contributed. The Catilinarian Orations are used 





as our point of departure. 


476 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


Now the Orations against Catiline deal with an episode in 
Roman life which has had its counterpart again and again in the 
later history of the world and even in our own times. The 
speeches themselves are the denunciation of a master of invec- 
tive directed against a man who is conceived to be a scheming 
politician engaged in capitalizing the discontent of the times for 
his own aggrandizement. To read them effectively is to catch 
the meaning of the conspiracy itself, to sense the point and effect 
of the speeches, perhaps to form some opinion of the value of 
Cicero’s apology for the execution, and withal to experience the 
tale as it was told two thousand years ago by one of the world’s 
greatest orators. Similarly, in reading the Archias we are read- 
ing a memorable eulogy of culture and of the man of letters. In 
reading the Manilian Law we are dealing with a forensic, in 
intent much like a speech in our own Senate uttered in support 
of a pending measure. To read the speeches with these things 
in mind is very different from using the Latin text as an exercise 
in transverbalization and syntax. 

In conducting the reading of the Catiline, our first task is to 
see that an adequate picture of the times and of the setting of 
the oration is drawn. This may involve one or more presentations 
at the hands of the teacher, and it certainly will involve the read- 
ing and discussion around the table of several books which deal 
graphically with the period and with the events. In the end, the 
class approaches the reading of the Latin itself with an intelli- 
gent appreciation of what it is all about and hopefully with some 
curiosity as to how Cicero made out and what he had to say. 

Taking the first oration, the teacher makes a clear presenta- 
tion of the argument as a whole and then perhaps of the section 
which it is proposed first to read. This first section is read aloud 
by the teacher, and then teacher and pupils read in unison. It is 
difficult to get too much of this oral reading, provided it is well 
done and is not allowed to become a matter of routine. 

The class is then asked to study the passage and to make 
an outline of the points which the orator is making, all in the 


TECHNIQUE IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE 477 


classroom. As in the silent reading, the class is advised to read, 
not translate, several times if need be, until the meaning begins 
to clear up. 

Finally, using the principles of the silent reading stage in 
the reading course, the meaning is brought out by specific 
questions centered upon the meaning. When this has been done 
and not till then, questions may be raised touching obscurities 
of meaning, but these are made plain by explanation and not by 
translation. In similar fashion, the whole oration is covered, and 
the other orations. 

Bearing in mind the principle that this is or should be an 
appreciation course primarily and a language-arts course sec- 
ondarily, its value in the secondary curriculum should be judged 
on appreciation principles. If there is probably something of 
appreciation value in Cicero for the pupils who are to pursue 
the course, then there may be some sound educational reason for 
offering the course. If the pupil is reading Cicero only because 
successfully passing the course will give him the necessary cred- 
its for the next step in his institutional routine, then it is not 
likely that any educational product will appear. 

Much the same situation is found with respect to the reading 
of Virgil or other poets. If the pupil has actually acquired the 
reading adaptation, he will still experience much the same kind 
of difficulty which he encounters in reading some of the more in- 
volved poetry of his mother tongue, different in degree perhaps 
but not different in kind. The same procedure is followed as in 
the case of the Ciceronian Orations, adapted of course, to the 
peculiar requirements of poetical expression. Reading aloud, 
which is important in the orations, becomes trebly important in 
poetry, especially in the form of metrical rendering of the con- 
tent. Sense of value, which is vaguely felt as one perceives the 
meaning of the content, becomes acute and lasting as the rhythm 
and cadence make themselves felt. 


CHAPTER XXVI 
TECHNIQUE IN ENGLISH COMPOSITION 


HE composition adaptation is reached when the pupil 
has arrived at the stage at which he customarily ex- 


presses a coherent stream of thought in correct language 
forms, without focal consciousness of the discourse itself. Like 
all the true learning products, the adaptation amounts to a 
change in the pupil himself, a change which is the result of long- 
continued growth. His attitude is one of unconstrained desire 
to express himself clearly and correctly and his command of 
correct usage is such as to enable him to do so. Such is the 
teaching objective. 

Now it ought to be borne in mind that the expression of a 
coherent stream of thought implies intellectual coherency in the 
source from which expression issues, namely the mind of the 
writer. Hence the attainment of the adaptation is a function 
of the student’s whole education. The contention so often heard 
that the most reliable mark of the educated man is the character 
of his discourse, especially his deliberate written discourse, has 
the best of foundations in our study of the educative process 
itself. And we see clearly again the very important principle 
that some of the best training in composition must of necessity 
come out of its use in the mastery of the subjects which are 
found especially in the science type of teaching but also in the 
appreciation and practical arts types. Further, we see how it is 
that the adaptation must in the nature of things come slowly 
as the result of a long process of intellectual growth. 

It is very important to distinguish between the adaptation 
itself and both developing facility and the associated skills. 

Even the young child has considerable skill in oral discourse 
and perhaps some rudiments of skill in writing. He improves 


478 








TECHNIQUE IN ENGLISH COMPOSITION 479 


from year to year and under favorable conditions may perhaps 
improve indefinitely. Few productions, of acknowledged literary 
merit even, are incapable of improvement. The line of the child’s 
improvement is not a straight line. It is full of periods of little 
development, and, owing to the interference of growth implica- 
tions discussed later, it has not infrequently periods of tempo- 
rary regression. But along the line somewhere the adaptation 
takes place. Below that level the pupil cannot be trusted to ex- 
press himself as well as he knows even. Above that line, he can 
be so trusted. 

Again, long before the adaptation level has been reached, in- 
dividual pupils will begin to reveal signs of the associated skills. 
This pupil is notably clearer in exposition than most, in spite of 
the fact that he spells poorly and is frequently guilty ot gross 
grammatical errors. Another has a striking facility in descrip- 
tion, another presents a rich content, another writes rapidly, and 
so it goes. 

Now, in the school which is obsessed by the rank-in-class 
stereotype, the teacher feels impelled to “recognize” these vari- 
ous qualities and facilities, and in the end the objective is lost 
sight of entirely. Instead there is necessarily substituted a gra- 
dation of judgments of performance in the English classes and 
the inevitable passing grade standard. Even the most highly 
graded performers may have missed the adaptation. They fre- 
quently do so. In any case the adaptation will be reached only 
by the accidental few. 

The most effective enemy of progress toward the true learn- 
ing product is our old acquaintance, the lesson objective and the 
lesson-learning attitude. The adaptation is not reached until the 
pupil has gone through the transformation in terms of which he 
customarily writes clearly and correctly whenever he has occa- 
sion to write. The routine of teaching and administration which 
evaluates lesson performance in the composition class and neg- 
lects composition performance elsewkere rapidly builds up an 
entirely false attitude in the pupil toward his learning and sets 


480 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


up a formal performance objective in the place of the true learn- 
ing product objective. In general, he feels clearly that when he 
has satisfied the composition teacher in a particular course or 
even in a particular month in that course, it is an injustice to be 
required to use what he has learned in his writing in other classes 
or even in the same class at an earlier period. His whole attitude 
toward learning is a purely commercial one in which he under- 
stands the teacher’s part to be the setting of tasks and his part 
to be the acceptable performance of those tasks, in return for 
which he is entitled to certain credits. That the performance of 
tasks should leave him in possession of certain powers for gen- 
eral use seems not to enter the comprehension of the typical les- 
son-learner in this field, or indeed in any other field. 

The first step in preventing the development of the lesson- 
learning attitude or in breaking down the attitude if it has be- 
come established, is to require the pupil to use what he has 
learned whenever he writes. The first step, though essential, is 
not, however, enough. Faithfully carried out, purely as a matter 
of routine, it soon becomes formal and the pupil tends simply to 
broaden his conception of lesson performance. Whereas before 
he had only the English teacher to satisfy, now he recognizes 
that he has others as well to satisfy. The second step is then to 
convince him, by direct attack on the attitude itself, that he 
should desire to write well, not because the school requires it but 
because it is a part of his education. It is comparatively easy 
to teach pupils to spell and punctuate correctly, to grasp and 
apply correct principles of grammar, to apprehend and apply 
correct principles of usage, but it is often exceedingly difficult 
to develop in them what may perhaps be called a discourse con- 
science. Nevertheless, this is the critical step on the road which 
leads to the learning product sought. The pupil who fails per- 
sistently to respond becomes a remedial case of the volitional 
type. 
The student of mental and intellectual processes, and the 
literary critic as well, can analyze the adaptation and tell us the 


TECHNIQUE IN ENGLISH COMPOSITION = 481 


elements which can be discovered. Indeed, to some extent we 
have herein done so. Pedagogically, however, the adaptation is 
a unitary matter. Either the pupil can write and does write in 
the sense in which we have defined the adaptation, or else he 
cannot, or more probably does not. If he is growing in his gen- 
eral intellectual content and organization thereof, his style will 
steadily become more mature as he grows older. In the end, he 
may rise to the level of expert performance along some line. But 
from month to month, the test is, Does he write in such form 
that the qualified reader can catch his meaning without being 
interrupted by meaningless sentences, ungrammatical expres- 
sions, incorrect usage. Analysis of the adaptation throws valu- 
able light on the teacher’s problem, but, if the teacher substitutes 
for the adaptation itself a succession of element objectives, the 
chances are that the adaptation will never be attained. For the 
rule of the law of initial diffuse movements with steady elimina- 
tion of random efforts, is substituted a series of proficiencies in 
elements which may or may not coalesce in the single proficiency 
and attitude required. The school inevitably tends to fall back 
on the rule of percentage achievement. In the minds of the 
teacher and pupil alike, the forest becomes lost in the trees. 


INTERFERENCE OF MATURING PROCESS 


The interference of the maturing process in the pupil sets 
up what may conveniently and not inaptly be termed a moving 
goal. As the pupil grows in intellectual breadth and in coherency 
of his intellectual content, he has more meanings to express, his 
meanings are more complex, and he requires new usages and 
discourse forms for the expression of his meanings. Conse- 
quently, he tends to become involved in sentence structures and 
word usages which are awkward and crude and for which he 
often needs new criticism and help, either from the teacher di- 
rectly or from a manual, and a rich assimilative experience of 
purposeful writing. He finally, nevertheless, arrives at the stage 
of intellectual maturity. He has made contact with his whole 


482 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


intellectual horizon, he has acquired the ability to think coher- 


ently and systematically in many fields, his command of dis- 
course is sufficient for all needs which are likely to arise, outside 
of the special calling to which he is now prepared to devote him- 
self. When he has reached the corresponding stage in his general 
volitional life, we say that his character has been formed. Simi- 
larly, in the present connection, he has arrived at man’s intel- 
lectual status and his discourse expresses his maturity. 

This principle of the moving goal has certain specific, prac- 
tical applications. 

If we provide real composition situations for the young 
child as soon as he has reached the reading and handwriting 
adaptations, he is soon expressing himself in written English at 
mastery level within the range of his usable vocabulary and the 
formal requirements of his very simple discourse. His paper is 
made up of short simple sentences, but the meaning is clear, the 
words are used correctly and spelled correctly, the punctuation 
and capitalization requirements are very limited but they are 


applied correctly. The instruction needed to bring him to this — 


point is very simple; there is not much to teach. He is launched 
on the stream of growth which leads at last to maturity. 

As his intellectual content and stock of meanings expand, the 
chief requirement is a limited amount of individual instruction 
needed to keep him at mastery level as his discourse needs ex- 
pand. The most difficult problem and the region in which the 
most instruction is called for is spelling. The reason is found in 
the fact that even at kindergarten level the child’s usable vocabu- 
lary far outruns the images of conventional spellings which he 
has acquired. Hence more or less artificial means must be re- 


sorted to in order to establish correct images. Hence again, the — 
daily exercise in spelling, a pure practice type of learning to — 


which we shall turn our attention presently. 


Now, this is the stage of development at which schools tend | 
to depart from the requirements of normal growth and set up — 


wasteful and formalistic teaching. Spelling is made an end in 









TECHNIQUE IN ENGLISH COMPOSITION 483 


itself and the child is drilled on the images of words which will 
not become a part of his use vocabulary for years. Similarly 
punctuation and grammatical usage courses are set up and the 
pupil is taught a memoriter performance long before his develop- 
ing discourse needs find places for the usages taught. Worse 
than all, he is “promoted” from grade to grade in terms of his 
lesson performance on spelling lessons, language lessons, and the 
like, quite without regard to functional use in natural discourse 
situations. 

The expansion of the pupil’s discourse, if indeed it expands 
at all, is strictly a function of his expanding intellectual content. 
The latter depends upon the richness of his real intellectual con- 
tacts as they are found in wide and varied reading, in the genu- 
ine study of geography, history, nature, elementary science, 
civics, and other content subjects, and awakening interest in 
those fields. It depends further upon a rich assimilative writing 
experience growing naturally out of the need of expressing 
meanings in these several fields. Thus does the vocabulary ex- 
pand, and thus the simple sentence gives place to the compound 
and the complex sentence with increasing inclination to use 
modifiers and dependent clauses. All this means that he blunders 
in usage and blundering is in itself a sign of learning health. He 
cannot manage his expanding discourse. He must become famil- 
iar with the mechanics of punctuation and he must learn to sense 
the need of certain principles of agreement and consistency in 
his use of words and word forms. 

Hence the problem of determining the content of usage in- 
struction as such becomes a matter of examining the writing of 
different pupils and identifying the usages which have become 
functional and which need corrective teaching. As the pupil 
grows into later needs these are in their turn met. If he does not 
grow, it is of no manner of service to teach him principles which 
he does not use. As he approaches maturity, he applies his own 
corrective learning. 


484 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


EVIDENCE OF ADAPTATION 


When has a pupil, perhaps in the senior high school or junior 
college, learned to write, that is, when has he reached the mature 
adaptation? The question is a difficult one and it can perhaps 
best be answered through the aid of concrete illustration. 

I have three manuscripts submitted by adult persons dealing 
with a subject which requires somewhat severe expository treat- 
ment. I am a qualified reader of the content which is set forth. 

The first of these papers has the subject matter well organ- 
ized; that is to say, the topic is well developed from point to 
point, so that I can follow the argument. It is grammatically 
correct: my mind does not hesitate, as I search for the sequence 
of pronoun and its antecedent, for instance. The vocabulary is 
adequate: the meaning is nowhere obscure because the writer 
has not the words with which to express himself. The spelling is 
correct throughout. The punctuation is sufficient for the clear 
expression of the meaning intended: I am not obliged to stop in 
order to see just where a certain clause belongs. The writer has 
undoubtedly attained the adaptation which is characteristic of 
the educated man. 

The second paper deals with the subject in a more precise 
fashion than the first. Consequently, the argument is more 
searching and critical. Otherwise, it is much like the first save 
that it has several faults in spelling. I note, however, that in 
every case the words misspelled are correctly used later. This 
person too has the adaptation. If the paper were being consid- 
ered for publication, the editor would probably return it with 
the request, ‘Please proof for spelling.” 

The third paper is the most extended of the three. It is inco- 
herent; that is to say, the several logical steps in the argument 
are confused and there are introduced many pages of irrelevant 
matter. The vocabulary is inadequate; the writer falls back on 
such expressions as “that thing” and upon colloquial and slang 
expressions which do not convey his meaning. He uses sen- 
tences which say what he does not mean and others in which 


TECHNIQUE IN ENGLISH COMPOSITION 485 


clauses are mutually contradictory. There are several glaring 
faults in grammar and spelling on every page. This writer 
clearly has not the writing adaptation. The reader cannot make 
out the meaning unless he is willing to approach the task much 
as would be the case if he were attempting to decipher an ancient 
inscription in a foreign language. We turn the paper back with 
the injunction to put it in literate form. After two attempts, a 
paper is finally submitted which is entirely acceptable. It is not 
that the writer does not know, but simply that he has no compo- 
sition conscience. He has never become convinced that the adap- 
tation in question is a part of the equipment of the educated man. 
His mind is replete with content, he is intellectually interested in 
the studies which he is pursuing, but he has never experienced 
the severe training in organizing his intellectual content which 
thoughtful writing alone gives. He is not willing to hold himself 
to the task of doing as well as he knows. He is a graduate of an 
institution of college grade, but in his high-school and college 
career he has simply won credit for lesson performance in Eng- 
lish classes. The papers which he has submitted in other courses 
have been graded for content in the courses pursued and the 
instructors have dismissed his composition failings as no part of 
their concern. 

Are the first two papers of equal value? Clearly not. The 
first is superior in some respects and the second in others. If we 
were judging one hundred papers instead of three, we should 
find no two of equal merit as a matter of performance, but we 
should be obliged to set up several series of graded excellencies. 
This paper in point of organization stands near the top, but in 
point of spelling it is one of the worst in the group. This one, in 
aptness and originality of expression is quite unusual, but its 
grammar leaves much to be desired. And so on. We might go 
farther and examine some standard works of acknowledged lit- 
erary merit and we should find much the same story. The truth 
of the matter is, the question is irrelevant. The important ques- 
tion is not relative rank, but evidence of the adaptation. 


486 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


What evidence then shall we admit? Teachers who are 
themselves qualified judges can apply the test with which this 
chapter begins, and as the meaning and purport of the test have 
been developed and will be further developed, with a degree of 
precision sufficient for purposes of actual progress in training a 
generation of pupils who can write the English language. 

Just what imperfections can we admit and still hold that 
we have evidence of the adaptation? It is not a question of per- 
centages or of minimum acceptable errors per page. The mo- 
ment we accept any such standard, we fall back on the passing 
grade as acriterion. The issue is, does the student normally and 
habitually express himself coherently and in correct language 
forms without laborious construction of every sentence or does 
he not do so. 

This student’s papers are customarily coherent and clear, 
but we find in a given paper several instances in which he lapses. 
We have evidence of the adaptation so far as this element of co- 
herency is concerned, but this particular paper is an instance of 
faulty performance. If we call his attention to the fault, he cor- 
rects it. 

Another’s papers are characteristically badly organized and 
clumsy and incoherent in their structure. Some are better than 
others, but in every case he corrects faults only after being told 
where they are and how to mend them. We have evidence that 
the adaptation has not taken place. 

This student’s paper has a few instances of misspellings, of 
bad punctuation, or of faulty grammar. The same opportunities 
occur several times in the same paper, but the student reacts 
correctly in each. Again we have evidence of the adaptation and 
of faulty performance. He has not adequately proofed his work. 

Another paper shows the same faults, but they occur in ev- 
ery instance in the paper in which there is an opportunity. If a 
word is misspelled once it is misspelled every time it occurs. If 
we find one “run-on” sentence, we find many. We have evidence 
that the student to whom the paper belongs has not attained the 


TECHNIQUE IN ENGLISH COMPOSITION 487 


adaptation. Coherent writing in correct form is not character- 
istic of him as an individual. 


_ TEACHING 


From the standpoint of teaching technique there are then 
two major considerations to be kept in mind, the development of 
the power of self-expression and the related power of correct ex- 
pression. 

The power of self-expression, as we have seen, is chiefly a 
matter of meanings to express and of severe training in such ex- 
pression. Hence, we find the foundation of English composition, 
not in composition classes, but in the courses which the school 
offers in subjects which belong to the science type, the apprecia- 
tion type, and the practical arts type. These are the fields in 
which the pupil is expanding his ideational content and organiz- 
ing it into coherent systems of thought which are capable of be- 
ing expressed in coherent discourse. We have already discussed 
the principles at work in our treatment of the science type, and 
shall barely summarize them here. In the presentation test, in 
the organization, in the oral and written recitation, in various re- 
ports on special voluntary projects, the pupil has an abundance 
of assimilative discourse practice. He enters this field in the 
early grades as soon as the primary adaptations have become 
established, and he does not leave it as long as he remains a stu- 
dent, perhaps long beyond the stage of the mature composition 
adaptation. The relation between his practice in writing and his 
learning in the subjects which he is studying is a mutual one. He 
finds in these subjects almost his only genuine opportunities for 
motivated expression of meanings in abundance, and his prac- 
tice in writing out his meanings is by all odds his best opportu- 
nity for the clarification of thought and the establishment of the 
appropriate science type, appreciation type, or practical arts 
type adaptations. 

Correct usage.—We turn then to the other major element of 
the discourse complex, the matter of correct writing, that Is, 


488 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


usage. The amount of space in this discussion which we devote 
to instruction in usage is disproportionate if we consider the 
relative values or the time element. The proportion of teaching 
time per pupil instructed in usage is perhaps one-twentieth, or 
even much less, when we compare it with the pupil’s writing ex- 
perience in the content subjects. Its relative value in developing 
composition power is perhaps still less. 

The form in which the educated man of today expresses 
himself is the product of a long evolutionary process. We often 
use the term “conventional use,” but strictly speaking there are 
few conventions in language. What we call correct usage is what 
it is, not because scholars have agreed to use certain forms, but 
because the latter are best adapted to the accurate expression of 
meaning. The educated writer for instance is distressed by the 
incorrect use of the partitive in the expression “‘best of any,” not 
because he has learned from a manual that it is wrong but be- 
cause he senses that it expresses an impossible thought. It may 
very well, however, be true that a manual first called his atten- 
tion to the incongruity of the expression. Furthermore, language 
is still evolving because the meanings which have to be expressed 
are evolving. The present stage in which good discourse finds 
itself is a sort of end result in the racial application of the law of 
initial diffuse movements. If we could sufficiently motivate the 
growing child and furnish him with a sufficient breadth and in- 
tensity of intellectual experience, it is altogether probable that 
he would eventually write correctly with no usage or language 
instruction whatever. Unhappily, that is an ideal which is, at 
present at least, scarcely realizable in the school. What may be 
called the strategy of technique is, however, to keep as close as 
possible to the line of evolution, with a maximum of intellectual 
contacts and motivation and a minimum of usage training. 

Our first need is a working list of correct language usages in 
terms of errors commonly made. A good many analyses of in- 
correct writing have been made and these have been compared 
with the discourse of educated, non-professional writers. The 


TECHNIQUE IN ENGLISH COMPOSITION 489 


result is a considerable number of brief manuals of usage. It is 
well for the teacher of composition to have several of these on 
his desk, and it goes without saying that he should be thoroughly 
familiar with their content. It is convenient to make a memoran- 
dum of the usages for which we must be on the lookout in the 
form of numbered brief notes, after this fashion: 

1. Capital first word 

2. Period at end 

3. Question mark in interrogative 

10. Words in correct use as to meaning 
12. Run-on sentence 
18. Restrictive and non-restrictive clauses 

And so on, 

Now, we begin to get some writing even in the primary 
school. As the secondary period comes on, we receive more and 
more. Bearing in mind that the pupil’s natural writing rather 
than his English exercise work is both the point of departure and 
the final test, the papers which pupils write in other than usage 
periods are examined for errors in usage. 

We shall find in the first place that the most common type of 
error is in spelling. This matter is set aside for another kind of 
teaching. 

Next, we shall perhaps find that some papers, aside from 
spelling, are impeccable so far as they go. The sentences are 
simple and perhaps there is no occasion for paragraphing. The 
pupils to whom the papers belong write as well as their intellec- 
tual content makes necessary. The capitalization is correct and 
the punctuation is good. They do not set off relative clauses with 
commas, but they use no relative clauses. Such limited use of 
grammatical principles as they make is correct use. For the 
most part they come from homes in which there is a good deal of 
reading done and a customary use of good English. These pupils 


490 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


are subjected to no instruction whatever. The day when they 
will need to use forms which they do not now use is not antici- 
pated. When that day comes, we shall see what needs it brings. 
Meantime, they continue to get much practice in writing in nat- 
ural situations, that is, in situations in which they have a mean- 
ing to express. Most of these situations will, as we have seen, 
appear in connection with other school work. 

Most of the papers, however, show incorrect usage to a 
greater or less extent. Not many different kinds of mistakes, be- 
cause their discourse is not yet sufficiently developed to make 
many such possible. Nevertheless, we do find a considerable 
number. Some of them are characteristic of the class as a whole, 
but most of them are revealed by some individuals and not by 
others. 

The mistakes which appear in many of the papers give us 
our basis for class instruction, and for one or more periods we 
devote ourselves to each in turn. The teaching here is a succes- 
sion of very thin science type units. The five-step procedure is 
not at all needed; the content of the unit is not extensive enough 
for that. Instruction is mainly presentation, assimilative exer- 
cises, teaching test, and reteaching. The concrete case here cited 
will serve as an illustration. 

“T see most of you use such forms as this”: (reads from a 
paper). “I see it in James’s paper”: (reads) “and in Nellie’s” 
(reads). “Now the correct way is this’: (Writes on the board 
several of the sentences in correct form.) Explains at length 
until she feels satisfied that the pupils have caught the notion. 
A series of missing word sentences, or unpunctuated or uncapi- 
talized sentences, is then given to make sure that the instruction 
has registered. If the teaching has not registered, the teacher 
tries to find the difficulty and reteaches until it does register. A 
large number of practice sentences is then given for assimilative 
experience, and these exercise papers are turned back until all 
have learned to use the right form in the right place. Finally, 


TECHNIQUE IN ENGLISH COMPOSITION 401 


the original papers (perhaps history stories in this case) are re- 
turned for correction and rewriting wholly or in part. 

At the end of this experience the teacher announces that the 
pupils will write the appropriate rule, which she dictates, in 
notebooks, which are kept for the purpose, with one or more il- 
lustrative sentences. The pupils are then reminded that they 
now know that principle of usage and will be expected to write 
correctly, so far as it is concerned, in the future. They are re- 
minded that they have their notebooks for help whenever they 
are in doubt. And they subsequently are all held responsible for 
correct use by having any paper whatsoever turned back with 
the simple admonition, “There is a mistake in language which 
you know better than to make; find it and correct neatly before 
you hand in the paper.” Thus the pupil builds up a composition 
conscience and likewise a handy keeper of his conscience in the 

form of his own manual of usage. 
: Much the same procedure is followed with the individuals 
whose errors are peculiarly their own, but instruction is indi- 
vidual rather than of the group. A concrete notion of the class 
period devoted to usage, or language if the customary term is 
preferred, may perhaps be gained from the description which 
follows. 

In the first place, the class does not necessarily meet for this 
purpose every day, nor does the whole class meet. The teacher 
has been reading papers written in the content subjects or else- 
where and at length has accumulated a stock of errors which 
calls for a campaign of instruction. Perhaps all children in the 
room need some teaching, perhaps a few need none at present 
and busy themselves about other tasks, possibly teaching is 
called for only with a few corrective problem cases. Let us as- 
sume that all or nearly all require some specific instruction. 

A class period or, it may be, several periods are devoted to 
group teaching on common errors. Then for several days the 
teacher meets the class for individual teaching. This, be it ob- 
served, will usually be simple corrective teaching requiring on 


492 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


the whole less time on each usage item to be dealt with than is 
the case with the more formidable errors which call for group 
teaching. For instance, here is a sixth-grade boy who turns in a 
paper which is excellent in content, in arrangement, and, except 
in one particular, in usage. He has used the apostrophe for pos- 
sessives in all his plural nouns. Evidently he did not fully catch 
the idea when that principle was taught. Simply a minute or two 
at the teacher’s desk will set him right. Eventually, it may be 
after a week or more, all individual pupil cases are cleared up 
and the usage class is suspended for some days. 

Now devoting a class period to individual teaching in this 
manner implies good foremanship on the part of the teacher. 
Let us visit first a very poor teacher and then a very good one. 

The first room chances to be one in which most of the chil- 
dren are in the sixth year of school life. It might have been the 
eighth, or the fourth, or the twelfth, for that matter. The teach- 
er is at her desk and down one aisle is a long cue of children, 
each waiting his turn. These pupils are twisting and turning and 
occasionally indulging in incipient ‘‘rough-housing.” A few of 
the pupils who are at their desks are intently reading, some of 
them books from the shelves and one or two of them are ab- 
sorbed in cheap juveniles. The majority of the class are lolling 
over their desks and in the adjoining aisles, apparently playing 
but actually tortured by that peculiar boredom which makes the 
schoolroom a daily nightmare to so many children. Occasion- 
ally, the teacher looks up and remarks “I must have better or- 
der.”’ No visible result except a series of curious stares at the 
general region of the teacher’s desk. “‘Tom, you go to work or I 
will send you to the principal’s office.” Tom stares vacantly at 
his arithmetic for a few minutes. 

Of course this is a sheer waste of time and indeed much 
worse. 

The next room has children of about the same age as the 
first. At the beginning, there is a moment of confusion, as the 
children select their occupations for the period. In less than two 


ee ee 





TECHNIQUE IN ENGLISH COMPOSITION = 403 


minutes, everybody is absorbed in his individual task, and a 
pupil has passed to the desk at a nod from the teacher. Both this 
pupil and the teacher are intent upon the pupil’s paper for five 
minutes and then another pupil takes the place vacated by the 
first. Two minutes. In a thirty-minute period eight pupils pass 
through this individual instruction and the teacher makes not a 
single comment addressed to the class. We note the occupations 
of the class. Several are at work on their papers or their lan- 
guage notebooks. Two have books from the library which they 
are using in the preparation of special papers which they expect 
to submit later, one in geography and the other in history. They 
brought the books to class with them. Three are hard at work 
on arithmetic. Six others, with guide sheets before them, are 
reading either geographical or historical material. One is work- 
ing at an individual spelling list. Three are reading useful books 
in elementary science and one a volume of Useful Knowledge 
taken from the library. 

Now in this room there is no waste of time. The teacher will 
need less than one week to finish this particular block of usage 
items. We make some inquiries among the pupils. ‘“‘Why are 
you studying arithmetic?” “I am up in composition but arith- 
metic comes hard to me.” “What are you doing?” “Making up 
a paper on what the English thought about our Revolution.” 
“Why do you do that?” “Well, I like to, I guess.” To another: 
“How do you know what to do when the period begins?” “Why, 
this is what we always do.” The time not utilized for usage in- 
struction by pupils who do not at present need it is devoted to 
the most natural thing in the world, working on what they do 
need or on that in which they have acquired a present intellec- 
tual interest. And so all these children are moving on toward ed- 
ucational self-dependence. 

Meantime, the follow-up is faithfully observed, in the man- 
ner which we have already described, in the papers submitted in 
subjects other than English. 

A useful, perhaps essential, device in the teaching of compo- 


494 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


sition and correct usage is the oral reading of written papers. 
There are two good reasons. In the first place, the vocalization 
of what has been written is a very important element in building 
up language and composition sense. A pupil will frequently crit- 
icize an incorrect use by stating that ‘it does not sound right.” 
Of course he is quite right. Much of the structure of correct dis- 
course has been built up in response to the requirements of vo- 
calization, either audible speech or that inner speech which 
seems to accompany all thought and its expression in written 
form. In the second place, as the pupil’s vocabulary expands, it 
will be found that he uses some words in perfectly correct mean- 
ings but in strange and bizarre pronunciations, simply because 
as a matter of fact he has never heard the words pronounced. 
Effective vocalization of spelling lists will undoubtedly do much 
to build up a phonetic sense, but it will not do enough. Hence a 
good deal of reading aloud. 

Now there is a wide difference between perfunctory exer- 
cises in oral reading, which used to be so common, and the real 
reading in a genuine audience situation of something which the 
pupil has produced. Hence, in the lower grades of the secondary 
school and well up into the junior high school region, it is desir- 
able to seize upon all appropriate situations for the reading of 
papers in geography, history, science, community life, and other — 
content subjects. The practice may well be continued, less em- 
phatically perhaps, throughout the period of general education. 
Special reports on topics in which individual pupils have become 
interested, good written recitation papers, especially those 
which use a relatively rich vocabulary, accounts of interesting 
vacation trips and the like suggest themselves. Of course long 
experience in the oral recitation contributes to this need in the 
same sense in which the oral reading of the written paper con- 
tributes. 

The question is frequently raised in classes of teachers, 
“What about teaching the use of the dictionary?” 

This ts simply one of the major items in usage teaching. 


TECHNIQUE IN ENGLISH COMPOSITION —§ 4os5 


Simple enough if brought in when the pupil’s expanding vocab- 
ularies have developed a real need of it and not different from 
other items in that respect. 

At about fifth- or sixth-grade level, a considerable number 
of pupils will be fairly likely to have found a good many words, 
especially geographical terms, which they are inclined to use and 
which they will be inclined to pronounce almost anyhow. It is a 
distinctly favorable symptom if the pupil does so pronounce, 
because it tends to show that he is free from the language-arts 
inhibition. The functional need of some teaching in the use of 
the dictionary is called for. Accordingly, the teacher presents 
the unit, one which in content by the way is much more like a 
true science type unit. The essence of the instruction is, ‘This is 
the way we find out how to pronounce an unfamiliar word.” 

A familiar word is placed on the board with the conventional 
diacritical workings. The teacher pronounces, pointing to each 
syllable and marked quantity and accenting as she does so. Sev- 
eral words are treated in this way, the class following in unison 
until the teacher feels that the idea has registered. Perfect con- 
trol technique required. She now follows the same procedure 
with some unfamiliar words until again she is satisfied that the 
art has been caught. Finally, she places on the board a list of 
many words, properly marked, and tests the class individually 
to make sure that all have learned. The group of slow learners is 
then segregated for reteaching. Thus the presentation. The 
class is now given a list of many words, taken from their geogra- 
phies or other subjects, for assimilative practice and told to find 
the pronunciations. They are then gathered for class exercise, 
not unlike a daily recitation, and practice upon the words which 
they looked up. Now this class exercise is in itself a test but only 
incidentally so. Its major purpose is that of assimilative prac- 
tice. The process is kept up until the teacher is satisfied in the 
cases of one after another that all have mastered. Henceforth, 
the new-found ability must be used and considerable corrective 
teaching is likely to be found to be necessary. That is, some pu- 


496 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


pils will still need to be sent to their glossary or to the dictionary 
to look up words which they mispronounce. 

It should be noted most carefuliy that the learning product 
here is the use of diacritical markings as a help in discovering 
the pronunciation of unfamiliar words. It is not the teaching of 
word pronunciation itself. Hence the exercise of common sense 
and good judgment is called for. If the routinist makes a point 
of requiring the children to look up the pronunciation of literal- 
ly every new word, he or she will quickly build up a set of study 
inhibitions. If successful, simply a crop of little pedants will be 
generated. If on the other hand, the teacher pronounces for the 
pupil every time he raises his hand for help, the all too familiar 
result will be the production of a new lot of grown-up babies. 
The teacher must sense when to pronounce a new word for the 
class, if the study situation is in full swing, and when to tell the 
pupil to look up a new word if mere indolence inclines the latter 
to rely upon the teacher. 

This process of instruction in correct usage goes on from 
month to month and year to year, never allowing specific instruc- 
tion on an item of usage to anticipate the child’s discourse use of 
the item. The pupil is never taught a principle of punctuation, 
for instance, until his papers show that he needs it, no matter 
how strongly the teacher, with the prestige of organized knowl- 
edge rather than the pupil in mind feels that “they ought to 
know it.” It will be noted that as early as the sixth year of school 
life some pupils come less and less often into the class group or 
to the teacher’s desk for instruction. They are finding their own 
way and keeping their usage parallel with their developing dis- 
course. By the end of the eighth grade, in a school which has 
faithfully and intelligently followed the appropriate teaching 
procedure, there should be few pupils left who still are obliged 
to come frequently to the teacher for instruction. The pupils 
who have thus been automatically released are at the first pla- 
teau of the typical learning curve on their climb to the level of 
mature adaptation. They still occasionally blunder, their style 


TECHNIQUE IN ENGLISH COMPOSITION 407 


is appropriate to the still immature character of their intellec- 
tual development, but it is improving as their cultural breadth 
expands and becomes organized. In brief, they write correctly 
in the main but their discourse is that of the schoolboy or school- 
girl. See that they have a handy manual and good dictionary of 
their own, that they use both, that they do not allow themselves 
to lapse into bad habits, that they have the abundant writing 
suited to the requirements of thorough learning in science type, 
appreciation, and practical arts subjects and then leave them 
alone. Progress in the high school will depend much more upon 
the fidelity of teachers in the subjects last named than upon any- 
thing the English department can do. 


TESTING 


As is the case in all language-arts subjects, teaching itself is — 
usually testing. The issue from day to day is, Is the teaching and 
the learning which is done in the composition period appearing 
as a true learning product in the writing which the pupil does 
when he is not writing English exercises as such? If it is so ap- 
pearing, then progress is satisfactory. Otherwise specific re- 
teaching, including reiterated emphasis on the principle that 
whatever the pupil is taught is to be learned for the sake of use, 
is called for. 

Nevertheless, here as elsewhere it is important from time to 
time to inventory the progress of the class and make a study in 
the concrete for the sake of the veracious picture it affords of the 
true situation. For this purpose, a series of papers, one or more 
for each pupil, written in a wholly unsupervised situation, that 
is, papers which are in no sense English exercises, is chosen. 
With the standard list of usages in hand, the teacher checks, 
first, the number of opportunities for correct use of the princi- 
ples which each paper shows; and, second, the number of in- 
stances in which the pupil reacts correctly. The percentage of 
correct reactions is then computed. The resulting exhibit may 
look something like the tabulation here presented in Table XV. 


498 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


Our problem is now to study the results in order to see what 
they can tell us. 

We note first of course B, C, E, H, J, and K. These pupils 
differ widely in the number of opportunities but they all react 
correctly. H and K use a relatively complex discourse and they 
manage it correctly. C and J still use an extremely simple form, 
but what they use they too manage correctly. So far as progress 


TABLE XV 
Pupil Fale ont ayaa 2 Per Cent Correct 
Avice 60 52 
pS Rican Aiek Ne 50 50 
AS hitch oot tee 20 20 
Mad b Strek betwies 80 32 
| Dyelpahey aegammaadea te 58 58 
LAE) Gk Bee ew 46 45 
ON ay ee ae 66 22 
Toe Ava es be 72 72 
Lis Biot tee eae g 30 12 
( Re ieee 18 18 
HPL cab e oe 64 64 
ee ete Ae 16 I 





in correct writing is concerned, the latter need give us no con- 
cern, but we shall do well to consider their general intellectual 
growth. Are they reading widely and interestedly? Are they 
lesson-learners in science and history? Perhaps we shall find lit- 
tle cause for comment in any of these fields. It may be that they 
will always use a form of discourse which is so simple as to give 
little opportunity for incorrect usage, but then some of our best 
state papers have shown that characteristic. It may be, as far 
as we can learn, that their reading and general intellectual 
growth is normal. If so, let them alone: their discourse will ex- 
pand sufficiently to care for their needs and, as far as this exam- 
ination shows, they can be trusted to learn to manage correctly 
whatever they write. On the other hand, it may be that they are 
uninterested and sluggish in all their content subjects. If so, the 
region of corrective measures is in that field. 


TECHNIQUE IN ENGLISH COMPOSITION 499 


H is a careful and studious boy who comes from a cultured 
home, is accustomed to language which is finished and accom- 
plished in its management of thought, and withal is himself rap- 
idly growing intellectually. Let him alone. B, E, and K show 
much the same characteristics as H, but in the cases of B and E 
to a markedly less degree. 

D, G, and I are apparently lesson-learners. It is well, how- 
ever, to settle this question before proceeding farther. Accord- 
ingly the pupils are tested on the principles which they misuse, 
in sentences set up for that purpose. Thus we discover whether 
or not in fact they need reteaching. One or more of them may 
need some reteaching and that is accordingly done. In general, 
however, they do well under teaching but do not make the appli- 
cation. We thus identify the aspect in which they are problem 
cases and know just where to attack. 

Of the three D is known to be an omnivorous reader and is 
interested in his content subjects. His discourse is developing 
more rapidly than he is willing to learn how to manage it. In his 
case, the emphasis will be placed at first on training him in in- 
tensive reading in the assimilation period of the science type and 
in the organization step. 

L is a non-learner. His discourse is very simple and he re- 
acts correctly only to a single opportunity. What he writes is 
less than half a page. He makes only two sentences and the di- 
vision between them is incorrectly identified. He is now in his 
fifth school year, came to us two years ago from another school, 
and has been more or less a problem in all subjects. Verdict: a 
remedial case, probably of the experiential type, requiring re- 
medial treatment. 

F is developing at a fair rate. His single error is an over- 
sight which any mature writer might make. For all practical 
purposes, so far as usage training is concerned, he belongs in the 
same class with B, C, E, H, J, and K. 

A is developing well on the expressional side but he is care- 
less. He is not a lesson-learner, but he has not fully made the 


500 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


learning adaptation in terms of which he does as well as he 
knows. We thus separate this defect, make him conscious of it, 
and proceed on the same principles as those followed for devel- 
oping sustained application and reading skills. (See chapter ix 
and chapter xvi.) 

Now it is very easy to completely misapprehend the bearing 
of the percentages which appear in the last column of the tabula- 
tion. The reader accustomed to the practice of scoring will tend 
to seize upon them and exclaim “Here is something definite; we 
can now draw a dividing line.” On the contrary, the percentages 
are in themselves nothing definite. They do not enable us to 
draw dividing lines and thus separate the linguistic sheep from 
the goats. They are simply means of making differences stand 
out somewhat more clearly and of attracting our attention more 
vividly to the several pupils. It is only when they thus induce us 
to study the individual pupils that they become valuable. On 
the next inventory, H may show the F characteristics but that 
will not at all alter our judgment of his essential learning condi- 
tion. If he should later show the relation between opportunities 
and correct usage which A shows, and if we then conclude that 
he is getting careless, it will be occasion for action. But 87 per 
cent as compared with 98 per cent or 100 per cent is in itself no 
ground for action. On the other hand, 40 per cent and 33 per 
cent lead us to suspect lesson-learning, but lesson-learning is 
not demonstrated until we raise the issue itself in the test we 
have described. In brief, we cannot set up a standard score and 
say, “Above this we are satisfied; below this we are not satis- 
fied.” When we do so, we adopt all the unrealities of the pass- 
ing grade. 

Thus far, we have dealt with a situation in which it is as- 
sumed that systematic development in the use of English as a 
tool of expression will begin as soon as the pupil has established 
the reading and handwriting adaptations and that he will con- 
tinue in the same school system until the mature adaptation has 
become established. High schools and junior colleges, however, 


TECHNIQUE IN ENGLISH COMPOSITION sor 


usually receive pupils from schools which are not parts of the 
same system to which they belong. Such pupils are therefore 
pretty likely to be at all stages of development, from that 
reached by H in our tabulation down to that reached by L. 

It is evident folly to conclude in the abstract, “These pupils 
need a course or courses in composition” and then to conclude 
that about three high-school units of a school year each should 
serve the purpose. The educational situation is ignored, the 
learning products are disregarded, the needs of individual pupils 
are overlooked. All are dumped together into a mechanical rou- 
tine. Our best schools no longer follow that practice. They pre- 
test the entering class and at least form sections in accordance 
with the disclosures of the pre-test. A great deal, however, 
hangs on the nature of the pre-test. The issue is not, Does the 
pupil know certain principles, but rather, Does he manage cor- 
rectly the discourse which he writes. Hence, the appropriate 
form of pre-test is in the nature of the inventory which we have 
exhibited. Assuming that such an inventory were made and that 
the disclosures were in proportion such as we have found in the 
exhibit on page 498, more than 50 per cent of the class would 
be assigned to no composition class in the high school. They 
would be faithfully watched, however, in all content subjects, 
would receive much writing practice therein, and some of them 
might later be assigned temporarily to a corrective section in 
English writing. This would especially be the case in the not un- 
likely contingency that a pupil of the C or J type should begin 
to expand and organize his ideational content into a more com- 
plex form. In that case he might begin to take on the D charac- 
teristics and would probably need some specific teaching. Nev- 
ertheless, at high-school level such a pupil should be required to 
use his manual and help himself to the maximum of his capacity. 
Teaching a pupil what he can learn for himself always results in 
volitional involution rather than evolution, in increasing depen- 
dency rather than self-dependence. 

Capacity in clear, accurate, and correct expression is, more 


502 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


than any other attainment which the pupil acquires, a reflection 
of his total education. As a man thinketh so is he and as a man 
thinks so he expresses himself. The chapter which we thus bring 
to a close is of necessity, more than any other, an expression of 
the educational theory upon which the whole volume is founded. 
Education is a development of the individual by successive 
adaptations. Training a pupil in the art of self-expression 
through the use of language is a process of intelligently guiding 
his whole intellectual evolution and of utilizing practice in self- 
expression as the chief instrumentality in applying such guid- 
ance. If there is any place in the school to which the term gen- 
eral intellectual discipline is applicable, it is here. 


CHAPTER XXVII 
PURE-PRACTICE TEACHING 
CHARACTERISTICS AND OBJECTIVES 


N learning which falls under the science and practical arts 
i types, progress seems to be strictly through the process of 
reflection. The objectives are insight in the one case and in- 
sight associated with the manipulation of materials or appliances 
in the other. The pupil does not learn except as he ponders upon 
the situations to which he is introduced. In the appreciation 
type, the good, the beautiful, and the true are presented to the 
pupil in such form that he can accept them and adopt them into 
his scheme of values. In the language arts, the pupil practices 
with the reception and expression of meanings through symbolic 
discourse until he reaches adaptations in terms of which he re- 
ceives or expresses meanings in discourse without inhibition. 
There is, however, still another form in which learning arises 
through sheer repetition with little or no thought element in- 
volved. To this type we assign the designation “‘pure practice.” 
Now learning in all the types is largely dependent upon prac- 
tice. The long assimilation periods which appear in the other 
types are essentially practice with assimilative materials, but in 
each of them there appears either the perception of meaning in 
some form or the reception or expression of meanings as an es- 
sential element of the learning process. In the new type which 
we are discussing, there is apparently no appearance of meaning 
as such as a part of the learning process. To be sure, there may 
be meaning as part of the motivation: we should not undertake 
to learn to swim, for instance, unless the art had a meaning for 
us in terms of some kind of ultimate utility. The art itself, how- 
ever, has no thought content but is simply a process of neuro- 


593 


504 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


muscular adjustment. Similarly, in fixating the image of a word 
spelling, the word itself of course has meaning but the meaning 
is not important in establishing the image. The fact that the 
word has meaning is important in making its spelling a perma- 
nent possession, for otherwise it would have no functional use. 
As far as practice is concerned, we can picture to ourselves its 
use in learning somewhat in accordance with the following clas- 
sification. 
Science type subjects 
Appreciation subjects 
Practical arts subjects 
| Language-arts subjects 


Assimilation 


Practice 
Repetition or P : ‘ 
drill ure-practice subjects 

Nevertheless, pure practice, not assimilative practice, is our 
main reliance for the development of the skills associated with 
all the types which have bases in meanings. Given, for instance, 
a certain stock of mathematical adaptations, the practitioner in 
their use acquires a marked facility in applying them to all kinds 
of situations which he is called upon to solve. Similarly, the 
physician who is equipped with a stock of adaptations appro- 
priate to all ordinary cases becomes expert or skilled through 
much practice in applying them to the cure of patients presented 
in his ordinary experience of human maladies. In dealing with 
the ordinary round, he is probably much more skilful than his 
more learned colleague who has had less experience. Again, ex- 
pert workmanship in the field of the practical arts is dependent 
upon much repetition in the application of adaptations whic! 
the artisan has acquired. 

The application of repetitive practice to the attainment of 
skill in situations in which a great deal of reflection is required 
may perhaps be made more convincing to the reader by citing 
common experience in the development of skill in such essential- 
ly thinking games as chess or various forms of whist or some of 
the better solitaire card games. Here the adaptation is in the 





PURE-PRACTICE TEACHING 505 


learning of the game itself. After a very simple learning process, 
we discover that expertness depends chiefly upon practice. To 
be sure, in the course of experience, additional adaptations are 
found and mastered, but we find that facility and expertness 
depend upon practice. If we intermit playing for a time, our 
game falls off. If we resume, it catches up, even though the most 
careful scrutiny fails to disclose that we have adopted any new 
methods. 

The instances cited then have to do with skills which are de- 
veloped by practice upon the basis of adaptations acquired in 
other types of learning. On the other hand, there are adapta- 
tions which are themselves acquired by simple repetition and 
these are the characteristic forms of learning which are found 
in the pure-practice type. Further, it should be added, we find 
skills which are developed by practice on adaptations of the type 
last named as truly as are other skills developed in the adapta- 
tions of other types. It is with the pure practice adaptations as 
essential learnings in the process of general education that we 
have to do in the present chapter. 

Our objectives here are of two sub-types: (a) Neuro-mus- 
cular abilities, (6) Automatic response to ideational or sensory 
stimuli. 

Adaptations of the first subtype are the most primitive 
learnings which the adaptable organism acquires. We find illus- 
trations, as we have seen, in walking, swimming, skating. We 
might add to the list a great many purely physical accomplish- 
ments such as bicycle riding, ball tossing, different forms of 
dancing, and the like. Numerous items in the general field of 
the practical arts and vocational training are pure-practice 
adaptations, milking for instance. Harnessing a horse, however, 
is a practical arts type of learning. We find few instances of this 
subtype in the schoolroom, but we do find them in connection 
with the language-arts type. The most conspicuous instances 
are found when it becomes necessary to train the vocal organs to 
an appropriate form of action in either a foreign language or in 


506 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


vocal music; and when the fingers must be trained to a needed 
form of action on the keyboard of typewriter or piano. These 
seem to be true pure-practice adaptations. Again, in the case of 
penmanship, we have an art which is acquired subsequent to the 
language-arts handwriting adaptation. It utilizes the art of 
handwriting but as far as the learning process involved is con- 
cerned, it seems to be essentially a different art entirely. 

It is important to distinguish here between the pure-practice 
adaptation in voice training, fingering, and penmanship, and the 
language-arts adaptations with which they are associated. The 
former are not language-art skills built upon the latter. They 
are separable arts. The child learns to sing, that is, to give ex- 
pression to a musical meaning. That is a language-arts product 
achieved by language-arts methods. It subsequently becomes 
necessary to modify the use which he makes of his voice. The 
new objective is not a language-arts but a pure-practice objec- 
tive. A child learns to express himself in handwriting and so 
achieves a language-arts objective. His management of word 
forms, spacing, rate, and the like are, however, all of them strict- 
ly limited by his untrained neuro-muscular organism. In order 
to train that organism, we must use the appropriate pure-prac- 
tice procedure. And so with the voice training which may or 
may not be required in the use of a foreign language or the fin- 
gering which may be essential to expertness in typewriting. 

Adaptations of the second subtype are found especially in 
spelling, in automatic control of number tables and the number 
space in arithmetic, and in purely memoariter control of such 
matters as formulae, rules, and the like, and paradigms in gram- 
mar, 

TECHNIQUE 

Teaching technique in the first subtype has much im com- 
mon with language-arts technique. It is the same in that no re- 
flection is involved in the learning process itself; it is different 
in that the language-arts objective is a matter of dealing with 
thought content while the pure-practice objective in itself has 





PURE-PRACTICE TEACHING 507 


no thought content. The language-arts inhibition has an ana- 
logue in the pure-practice inhibition but in the former case the 
inhibition tends to divert the learning process to a different 
type of objective, namely deciphering ability, while in the latter 
the inhibition tends either to be ignored altogether or else to hin- 
der or stop the learning process. It does not divert the learning 
process. The law of initial diffuse movements applies with per- 
haps equal force to both types. 

A certain swimming teacher gave this succinct and compre- 
hensive piece of instruction, “Jump in and kick, kick, kick.” In 
so doing he exhibited perfect comprehension of the learning 
principle at work and avoided completely the introduction at the 
outset of the pure-practice inhibition. His auditors were no 
doubt conscious of what the art of swimming is, for they had 
watched others. 

Now if he had begun by giving his class a lecture on the 
movements required in swimming, what you must do first and 
what next, and had succeeded in making such instruction regis- 
ter so that the learner on entering the water had undertaken to 
learn as a conscious process in which the question, ‘What is the 
first stroke and what next” was always focal, the inhibition 
would have been set up, and no learning at all would have taken 
place. In due season, most of the learners would have ignored 
the instruction and begun practice under the stimulus of contact 
with the water. On the contrary, what the teacher actually did 
was to set at work the principle of initial diffuse movements with 
gradual selection of the effective movements. In due season the 
law had its way and the swimming adaptation appeared. 

In the various experiments with ball tossing cited in the psy- 
chological literature, the initial movements are crude—the balls 
are dropped, sometimes none of the balls is in the air while the 
learner is “thinking about it,” but little by little practice makes 
perfect until the goal of subconscious performance is reached. 
The old French teacher of drawing observed the same rule in an- 
other type of learning. “All he ever said was ‘Continuez, mes en- 


508 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


fants,’ and you had to make the best you could of that.” 

So it is with all teaching where the objective is a pure-prac- 
tice objective of the first subtype. The learner is set to practice 
with the goal itself as a focal content in consciousness. So long 
as he practices with intent to achieve the goal he will eventually 
clear up his random movements and arrive. Certain qualifica- 
tions however need to be observed. 

In the first place, the goal must be recognized and there 
must be intent to reach the goal. If the pupil is simply given 
formal exercise work, such, for instance, as two hours daily 
piano practice, progress will depend upon the chance that the 
learner discovers for himself the goal and thus establishes pur- 
pose or intent. Hence, as an initial step in the learning, the pu- 
pil must be made conscious of the goal by observing perform- 
ance at the level of the adaptation sought. In the swimming 
class, consciousness of the goal can be taken for granted, for 
everybody knows what it is to swim. In the piano class, on the 
other hand, it may be that a given pupil is wholly unconscious 
of what it is all about. Consciousness of the goal should there- 
fore be guaranteed at the outset. 

You see how my fingers move on the keyboard. I do not have to 
stop and think about where I place them. I play without noticing my 
fingers. Now I had to practice a long time before I could do that. You 
can already play very nicely these simple things, but your fingers are 
not yet musical fingers and so I am going to give you some exercises to 
limber them up. 


Again, the pupil needs to be made conscious not only of 
progress but of the nature of the progress. In penmanship, for 
instance, he can always compare his product with that of the 
penmanship scale, and he can keep a tabulation of the gain in 
his rate. In pure-practice learning of this nature, however, there 
tends to form after the initial spurt a long level of little improve- 
ment. If the pupil is ignorant of this principle, he is apt to be- 
come discouraged. If the teacher is ignorant of it, she will tend 
either to think that the pupil has reached his maximum attain- 


PURE-PRACTICE TEACHING 509 


ment or else that he is not trying. Pupil and teacher alike, when 
duly aware of the nature of the progress to be expected, will not 
become discouraged and the pupil will keep patiently practicing, 
confident that in due season the final spurt which leads to the 
expertness required will come. 

While the effect of making the learner focally conscious of 
his movements is to set up the inhibition characteristic of the 
type, there are often occasions when the pupil must be made 
aware of circumstances which are in themselves inhibitory. Tar- 
get practice with small arms is a pure-practice type of learning, 
but if the learner is unaware of the influence of wind blowing 
across the line of fire, he will be a long time making the requisite 
adjustment, and gains made on a windy day will tend to spoil 
shooting in a calm. Hence, the instructor makes the learner 
aware of the inhibiting circumstance and the latter begins to 
practice with conscious allowance for wind drift. If, on the other 
hand, the instructor merely lectures on the theory without mak- 
ing specific application to the practice in hand, such as “Aim up 
wind about so much and then creep in” the learner will profit 
little or nothing. The principle is illustrated in the experiment 
cited in Judd’s Psychology of High School Subjects, pp. 268 ff. 
Here two groups of children practiced shooting at a target under 
water. One group was instructed in the principles of refraction 
and how the apparent displacement is produced, while the other 
group was left to its own devices. No difference in the learning 
rate of the two groups was noted. The situation was the same as 
would be the case if the swimming instructor should lecture on 
the principles of buoyancy in the human body when it is in mo- 
tion in water. Now, when the conditions of the experiment were 
changed, after the first learning had taken place, by increasing 
the depth of water, the group which was aware of the principle 
involved and its practical bearing had a distinct advantage over 
the other group. The French Canadian, in instructing his baffled 
pupil in the deplorable art of shooting fish, makes the latter 
aware of a necessary correction when he exclaims “You got hit 


510 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


heem where he ant.” Neither teacher nor pupil in this case 
knows anything about the theory of refraction. In this whole 
matter of inhibitory circumstances, pure practice teaching ap- 
proaches the confines of true practical arts teaching. 

In general then, the technique in this subtype is a process of 
making the learner aware of the goal, of enabling him to check 
and understand his progress, and of making him aware of inhib- 
iting circumstances. Otherwise, the learner is left alone. 

Objectives of the second subtype, that is, automatic re- 
sponse to sensory or ideational stimuli are of course much more 
common and much more important in the field of general educa- 
tion than are those of the first subtype to which we have been 
giving our attention. Among the objectives of the second sub- 
type, the learning of spelling and automatic response to the fun- 
damental number facts are preeminent. 


SPELLING 


Spelling is, of course, primarily a matter of usage in English 
expression. In practice, the teaching of spelling has to be sep- 
arated from the routine of usage teaching for two reasons. In 
the first place, as we have seen, while the pupil’s discourse does 
not evolve fast enough to make the teaching of the limited num- 
ber of conventions which even the educated person uses at all a 
formidable matter, his active word vocabulary at the beginning 
of the secondary period has already evolved to the extent of sev- 
eral hundred words and is still rapidly developing. The images 
of correct spellings in much of his vocabulary are, however, 
either vague or incorrect and he still has to develop the sense for 
word forms upon which most of his later spelling will have to 
depend. Further, while most if not all his usage principles are 
the product of science type learning, in which thought processes 
are involved, his spelling is the product of pure practice learning 
in which images are established quite independent of thought 
content. 

Training in spelling should probably not begin until the 


PURE-PRACTICE TEACHING SII 


reading adaptation has been well established, since otherwise 
such training is apt to set up word consciousness in the field of 
reading. 

The initial problem is to decide upon some principle of word 
selection which shall govern the formation of spelling lists. Now 
if we recall the principle that the problem is to weave usage into 
the pupil’s active discourse, both in usage principles and in spell- 
ing, we find a ready basis in principle for the selection of such 
lists. Such lists should ideally be made up of words which are in 
the pupil’s active vocabulary, that is words which he uses, not 
words which he understands but does not use. Hence, the pupil’s 
spoken discourse and his written papers, especially the latter, 
are the source from which we can best make our selections. The 
reader is entitled to some explanation and defense of the prin- 
ciple thus set up before going farther. 

We are teaching the correct spelling of words in order that 
the pupil may use them correctly. Here, as elsewhere in educa- 
tion, we are engaged in the process of adjusting the pupil to a 
world which is his world here and now. It is only by reacting to 
this present world of his, as the pupil grows from year to year, 
that he will eventually acquire the capacity for reacting to the 
new world which he must meet in later life. Hence the process 
of acquiring the correct spelling of words which he uses in his 
discourse is part of the process of adjusting him in terms of his 
discourse to the world which he at present encounters. The pu- 
pil makes a correct spelling his own in proportion as he uses it. 
Otherwise, it becomes simply a part of his stock of lesson-learn- 
ing. Whether it then simply fades out of existence as a memor- 
iter acquisition or is carried on as a mere eruditional content, the 
result is much the same. In neither case is it a contribution to 
the stock of adaptations which in the end make him an educated 
person. The first of the two possibilities is the more likely to oc- 
cur: the word is simply memorized and the memory soon fades. 

The spelling book of the older day was an excellent illustra- 
tion of the prestige of organized knowledge, of the confusion of 


512 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


education with erudition, to which we have frequently referred. 
Here were some spellings which with sufficient motivation and 
practice could be memorized. The youth who could spell down 
his competitors was acclaimed by the naive laity as a marvel of 
education. It mattered not that some of the words were tech- 
nical expressions, whose meaning the child could not compre- 
hend either then or later, and that other words had meanings 
which were comprehended to be sure but were no part of the 
child’s present discourse. That day has largely been left behind. 
Our standard spelling lists are now much better arranged to 
meet the discourse needs of the average child. Nevertheless, the 
principle itself still remains. It boots not to assign a word which 
is part of the active vocabulary of the average child in the sixth 
grade in the United States, if it is no part of the active vocabu- 
lary of Willie Jones in the sixth grade of the Washington School 
in Boston or Chicago or Seattle. 

Still less is it wise to assign that word to Willie if it is part 
of his vocabulary and if he already uses not only it but most 
words correctly. To do so is not only a waste of time but is to 
further Willie’s conviction that learning is successful perform- 
ance in the classroom. Hence, the principle of economy in teach- 
ing and the steady inculcation of right notions of educational 
values. Economy goes farther than avoidance of words which 
have already been taught and learned; it covers also words 
which have been learned but not taught. From the beginning 
of school-life children pick up the correct spelling of many 
words, perhaps most words, and in later life the educated person 
applies the process to nearly all words. 

Now, the pupil’s active vocabulary expands as his intellec- 
tual contacts expand. If he is the child of a cultivated family, 
his vocabulary will tend to be much richer than that of his con- 
temporary who belongs to the home of meager intellectual life. 
If another reads widely, his vocabulary will expand more rapid- 
ly than that of his playmate who reads not at all. If certain chil- 
dren are studying content subjects under a procedure which 


PURE-PRACTICE TEACHING 513 


calls for much reading and stimulates a good deal of discussion, 
their vocabularies will become enriched more rapidly than will 
those of other children whose daily routine is a matter of lessons 
learned. The essential point to be kept in mind in organizing 
spelling lists is that the normal enrichment of vocabulary arises 
chiefly out of the enrichment and organization of ideational con- 
tent and only incidentally out of words considered in isolation. 

As soon then as a group of children has definitely reached 
the reading adaptation and has begun to write, the problem of 
the word list is reached. For some time, there will be compara- 
tively few misspellings, for the reason that the active vocabulary 
is composed of easy words and is still rather limited. There will 
be some misspellings, however, enough to make a spelling pro- 
gram desirable. There will be fewer, in proportion as the process 
of oral reading has been kept at the proper equilibrium between 
good vocalization which contributes to reading progress and un- 
due study of words in isolation which tends to set up the deciph- 
ering attitude. Instruction will be largely individual corrective 
work. 

As soon as the pupils have begun to read widely and to get 
broader contacts in various directions, perhaps at third-grade or 
fourth-grade level, their active vocabularies will tend to expand, 
or rather perhaps many words will begin to transfer from the 
passive to the active vocabulary. The teacher who is unaware of 
the principle at work becomes appalled at the pupil’s bad spell- 
ing. As a matter of fact, he spells as well as he did before, but he 
is using new words which he has not learned to spell. A more 
systematic program becomes necessary. The ideal plan is to 
make a study of the pupils’ written papers and to prepare word 
lists for each pupil. It goes without saying that such papers 
should be found in the regular paper work of the content sub- 
jects. If several different papers for each pupil are utilized, we 
shall get a fairly complete picture of his present working vocab- 
ulary. A more expeditious but less exact plan is the following. 

A standard word list scientifically determined for the ap- 


514 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


proximate grade under consideration is taken and the words 
found therein are carefully checked by the teacher and only the 
words retained for teaching which she is sure are in the active 
vocabularies of the greater portion of the class. To the list thus 
formed are added other words which she is sure are also to be 
found in their active vocabularies. The teaching list is thus built 
up. | 
TECHNIQUE IN SPELLING 

The list thus formed is divided into convenient blocks, let 
us say of 25 or 50 words each. The first block is subjected to a 
pre-test and this pre-test may take the time of the class in the 
period set apart for the purpose for one or more days. In pre- 
testing, the teacher dictates each word and then pronounces a 
familiar sentence in which the word occurs in its proper mean- 
ing. Thus: “There.” “There are thirty children in this room.” 
“T place the book there.”’ At the conclusion of the test we shall 
be apt to find a situation something like that pictured in Table 
XVI. 

Let us see what we can make out of the results. 

In the first place, we note that 4 pupils miss no words. They 
are accordingly released for other work or other interests. 
Again, five words are missed by nobody. We have for the pres- 
ent no further concern with them. 

Nineteen pupils miss three words or less and to these pupils 
we shall give some attention. In the cases of all who have missed 
only one word we recognize pupils whose record of misses sel- 
dom exceeds one or two words. They are individuals who have 
fairly well developed word sense and we exclude them from the 
group which is to be gathered for class teaching. They will work 
on individual word lists of the words missed, and on the list as 
a whole. The same is in general true of Nos. 6, 10, 15, 17, 24, 
27, 30, and 31. They are also assigned individual lists. The re- 
maining 6 of this group of 19 pupils are usually found to have 
made as many or more misses on pre-tests. Their word sense is 
still defective and they need the training implied in the presen- 


515 


PURE-PRACTICE TEACHING 


TABLE XVI 
PRE-TEST 





’ . 
. ° 

e ° 

. e e 

a 5 = 

e e ° 

e ° ° 

° e e 

- js : 
$ : 
° 

Alrol el alt mi wat] WL OLnRN]To;al oj; xia 
Hialalalilalalalalalalalwmalin!inIif&a 


516 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


tation technique described below. Summarizing, we find in the 
section of 32 pupils: 4 pupils who miss no words at all; 13 who 
are given individual lists; and 15 who are assigned for group 
teaching. 

Turning now to the words, our attention is first attracted by 
“prairie.” We suspect that it may not be in the active vocabu- 
lary. The children, however, live in a part of the country where 
the word is in frequent use, they are encountering it in their 
geography, and we find it now and then in their papers. If not 
actually present in their working vocabularies, it is on the point 
of becoming so. Perhaps in the revision of this word list we shall 
postpone it to a later month or perhaps year. However, we find 
later that the word is missed but once in the final test on the 
block (see page 521), while “blaze” is missed twice in the final 
test, and “races” and “‘blot,’’ which showed no misses on the pre- 
test, are missed once each on the final test. 

Ten of the words which are missed at all on the pre-test are 
missed three times or less. The indications are that these words 
are not difficult at this stage and, if subsequent experience con- 
firms the result of this pre-test, we shall move them back into 
earlier lists, since all of them are probably in the active vocabu- 
laries of younger children. For the present, we shall utilize them 
in our group instruction, both because we shall do well to make 
sure and because they are available for the purpose of develop- 
ing word sense in terms of the images which we discuss below. 
The same reasoning will apply to words which are missed more 
than three times. 

Seven words, namely, “sweeten,” “subtraction,” “sign,” 
“skipping,” “strife,” “barley,” “bullet,” are distinctly hard 
words for this section and at this stage, and in the cases of the 
first five and last we can easily see why they are hard. We have 
some doubt that “barley” is really part of the vocabulary of the 
class in general. If it were left out, the pupils would probably 
pick up the spelling later. Apparently the teaching as such pre- 
sents no special difficulties. 


PURE-PRACTICE TEACHING 517 


To resume then, we have a teaching list of 20 words and a 
teaching group of 15 pupils. 

Let us turn now to the presentation in spelling. 

Retention of the correct spelling of a given word seems to 
be a matter of the establishment of a complex of four images. 
We recall a spelling as a set of letters which have been seen to- 
gether in a word form; associated with the same form vocalized; 
with the letters orally named in a certain order; with a word 
pronunciation and letter naming which have been heard; and 
finally with the word as written. We may designate these sev- 
eral images in brief as the visual, vocal, auditory, and handwrit- 
ing images. The problem is to establish these images vividly and 
to establish the associations between them. 

The reader can verify the importance of the images by not- 
ing his own reactions in the cases of words which are still vague 
in his system of recall. We encounter such a word in writing. 
Instantly our tendency is to make an effort to remember how the 
word looks. Not satisfied, we call into operation our vocal or- 
gans by spelling the word out. Or, if we have a brief forewarn- 
ing of the use of the word and vainly endeavor to recall, the 
act of writing itself will often clear up the difficulty and give us 
confidence in the right spelling. In brief, we automatically call 
to our aid all the possible images. If we are still not confident, 
we cut the Gordian knot and look it up. It is interesting to note 
how experience with many wrong images will tend to break 
down the images which have been established. The teacher who 
has to work with papers which contain many misspellings soon 
loses confidence in his own spellings and finds himself going, half 
ashamed, to the dictionary for the spellings which he really re- 
calls perfectly well. 

Now, the psychology of image establishment is familiar. It 
is essentially a matter of vivid perception, of intensive repeti- 
tion, and of long practice in use. Reflection plays no part, but 
on the contrary, tends to set up an inhibition. If we say to the 
pupil, “This is the right way to spell ‘business’: remember not 


518 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


to spell it ‘buisness,’ ” he will hesitate in embarrassed confusion 
and more likely than not will react with the wrong spelling, 
simply because the warning has made the wrong image the more 
vivid. The adjuration “to think” may help in arithmetic; it is 
apt to be a hindrance in spelling. 

With the teaching list in hand then, the teacher selects a 
very few words for the day’s practice. A good rule is perhaps 
three in the third grade, four in the fourth, and not more than 
five in any grade. The important consideration is not to attempt 
to practice on so many words at a time that the images cannot 
be made vivid and intensive. 

The class is then gathered close to the board so that each 
will have the board space to be used clearly in his field of vision. 
All distracting drawings and writings are removed from the 
board. The teacher waits until she has 100 per cent control tech- 
nique. 

Suddenly she turns and writes clearly and distinctly in syl- 
labic form the word, sub-trac-tion. She pronounces clearly and 
distinctly, slightly exaggerating the phonetic value of each syl- 
lable. | 

Several pupils are called upon in succession to do the same. 
If the values are not vivid as the pupils vocalize, the teacher pro- 
nounces again, perhaps several times. Finally, the class vocal- 
izes in unison. 

The teacher then says, “Write” and the pupils write the 
word on small slips of paper. 

Thus there have been presented vividly the four images and 
all children have reacted to each of the four. 

In many words the vocal image is especially important. It 
is easy to see that many misspellings are traceable to bad pro- 
nunciation. For instance, “subtraction” in our list is often vocal- 
ized “substraction” and is more likely to be misspelled thus than 
otherwise. Further, it is probably true that word sense is built 
up chiefly through practice in vocalizing words whose visual 
images are clear. Thus there is contributed a valuable element 





PURE-PRACTICE TEACHING 519 


of language learning which cannot easily be acquired on lan- 
guage-arts principles and likewise the basis on which independ- 
ent spelling ability is built up. Obviously the pupil cannot go to 
school all his days to learn the spelling of all the new words 
which he encounters. Word sense once established, however, he 
is inclined to apperceive new words in their correct spellings and 
to react with correct spellings. In brief, in learning to spell 
words he also learns to spell. 

The process is continued with each of the words in the day’s 
list and, when all have been thus presented, the papers are 
turned and the teacher dictates the words in column as in the 
pre-test, each word being followed by a typical sentence in which 
it is used in its meaning. The pupils write the words, but not the 
sentences. Thus the teaching test. If the spellings of the class 
as a whole on this teaching test, ignoring the definitely identified 
_ problem cases, are less than 97 per cent correct or thereabout, 
| the test results are analyzed. If misspellings are scattered 
among the words of the day’s list, then the list as a whole is 
made the list for the next day. If, on the other hand, the misses 
are limited to one or more words, these words only are made 
parts of the list for the next day. The reader will perhaps raise 
the question, Does not this process waste the time of the great 
majority who have learned the words? We think not. Let us re- 
call that the learning process here is quite as much a matter of 
learning to spell as learning to spell words. In other words, prac- 
tice in building up fundamental word sense is as valuable as rec- 
ognition of right spellings of individual words. Words which are 
already recognized are on the whole more valuable for this pur- 
pose than those whose images are still vague. The pupils who 
were selected for teaching by the pre-test are pupils whose word 
sense is evidently still in the process of formation. The dividing 
line of 97 per cent has no significance in itself; it simply allows 
a reasonable margin for errors which are in the nature of slips 
of the pen rather than true misses. 


520 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


And so the process is continued day by day until the teach- 
ing list has been exhausted. 

Meantime, the pupils who have been released from group in- 
struction are studying their individual lists with the understand- 
ing that they will be recalled for the final block test. They are 
told to study their words in much the same manner in which 
the class studies the list set for group instruction and not to give 
over until they are sure that they can spell each word right un- 
der any and all circumstances. Such pupils will ordinarily ac- 
complish the task in a fraction of the time which the teacher de- 
votes to the class group and opportunity is given for reading or 
other study. High motivation is thus set up and it is motivation 
of the right type, since it is obviously in terms of mastery of a 
learning product rather than in terms of relative performance 
on a test in which few if any actually master. 

When the group teaching has been completed, the class as a 
whole is brought together for the final test on the block as a 
whole. Typical results are exhibited in the following inventory 
in Table XVII. 

Let us see what the exhibit has to tell us. 

Pupils 7 and 13, who were released entirely after the pre- 
test, justify themselves on the final test. Pupil 14 does not jus- 
tify himself. Pupil 12 was released on the pre-test but is absent 
on the final test. We note the miss of Pupil 14 on the word “‘be- 
low” and conclude that the miss was a real one, since he spells 
it with two l’s. He is given this word for individual practice. 
We shall watch this tendency to make a miss on the final test 
not made in the pretest and shall perhaps on later blocks include 
him in the presentation group for practice on the images. 

Pupils '6;'10, 45, 17, 18, 19; 20,(22, 23) 2427, /30angeas 
were released for individual study. All but Pupil 20 make per- 
fect scores on the final test. Pupil 20 misses one word on the pre- 
test and a different word on the block test. It may have been a 
slip of the pen in the latter case, but we note him as possibly 
needing image training. He practices “races” further. We may 


521 


PURE-PRACTICE TEACHING 


TABLE XVII 
Biock FINAL TEST AND ComMPARISON WITH PRE-TEST 


| 
B 
a 


im 
ysowTY 





I0,... 


II...» 


I2.... 


ai anrecraks 


Thisss a2 


rS.. 








* A =Pre-test. 


B=Block Test 


THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


522 


TABLE XVII—(Continued) 


Worps 





























SLRS QL IMAlP SIMI M[A Aim mpPe Miami M( Mm [ Aisi Ale MAP mpmMiem palma lyae [alicia 


i : 2 : 3 : ; : = ie} =[o}-[> fe e[-f-]-f-[efe|ef-|¢[-]¢[-]¢[-]-faI 2 


. . . ° ° . « . ° . . ° 
e ° e e . e . ° e © 

e e e . e 

. . ° 

















PURE-PRACTICE TEACHING 523 


find on the next block test that he plays the same trick. In that 
case, we shall regularly include him in the class practice group 
for a time. Thirteen pupils who work on individual lists, three 
words or less each, make 26 misses on the pre-test and 1 on the 
final test; the 15 pupils in the class presentation group make 67 
misses on the pre-test and 5 on the final block test. Evidently 
the pupils who were released and held responsible for a few 
words each accepted the responsibility very fairly well. The 
15 pupils who compose the class presentation group missed 3 
words on the final test which were not missed by the same indi- 
viduals on the pre-test. 

There are no problem cases in the group. Pupils 1, 11, and 
25, who might reasonably be suspected on the showing of the 
pre-test, exhibit satisfactory learning. Pupil 1 makes an aggre- 
gate of 2 misses on the several teaching tests (not shown here) 
and the other two make none at all. 

Let us turn now to the word misses on the final block test. 
“Blaze” is missed four times on the pre-test and twice on the 
final test, but both the latter misses are at the hands of pupils 
who did not miss the word on the pre-test. The same situation 
appears in the cases of all words but one which are missed on 
both tests. The trouble is not with the words but with the pupils. 
The exception is “prairie,” in the case of which the one miss on 
the final test is made by a pupil who missed the word on the pre- 
test. Since the misses on this word drop from 20 on the pre-test 
to 1 on the final test with only two misses on teaching tests, evi- 
dently the word is not difficult. 

Now, we might have found one or more problem pupils, chil- 
dren who are responsible for the greater part of the misses on 
the daily teaching tests and who come through with as many or 
nearly as many misses on the final test as on the pre-test—some- 
times more on the former. These people have to be set aside for 
study. 

Or we might have found one or more words which show sim- 
ilar characteristics. Such words are spelling “demons,” and they 


524 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


are included in the next teaching list and so on until they are 
conquered. If a “demon” is in the active vocabularly of chil- 
dren, the earlier it is attacked the better. There is no sound jus- 
tification for deferring a word to a later year simply because it is 
difficult. Such a word, if in the active vocabulary, will become 
steadily more a “demon” through practice on defective images. 
If it is not in the active vocabularly, it will not be taught until it 
appears therein, but neither will an easy word. 

There remains the issue, will the pupil use the correct spell- 
ings which he has thus learned in his ordinary discourse? Hence 
what we may call the functional test. Now, there is obviously no 
possibility of a functional test if we have been teaching words 
which are not in the pupil’s active vocabulary. To apply the 
functional test, we must examine the written work of pupils, util- 
izing, as far as we can, writing which has been done in wholly 
unsupervised situations. 

We shall find that some pupils use correctly words which 
have been cleared up in the spelling lessons and others do not. 
Misspellings found in the discourse of the latter are pretty apt 
to fall into either one of four classes. 

1. The pupil can spell the word correctly but will not make 
the effort. 

2. He intends to spell correctly but is careless. 

3. He has learned the correct spelling only as an exercise 
in spelling and the spelling does not transfer to use. In other 
words, he exhibits the lesson-learning attitude. 

4. He has not learned the correct spelling. 

In general, the invariable practice should be to glance rapid- 
ly over all papers submitted and hand back papers which show 
inexcusable spellings, with the simple injunction, ‘There are 
some inexcusable misspellings in your paper; correct them.” 
Such action will probably be included in the injunction to cor- 
rect inexcusable errors in usage discussed in the last chapter. It 
should of course be accompanied by admonitions on the subject 
of carelessness and slovenly work in general. The associated 


PURE-PRACTICE TEACHING 525 


teaching objective is volitional in character: we are focusing on 
the inculcation of ideals of carefulness and thoroughness as well 
as upon spelling. If the tradition grows up, as it rapidly will if 
all teachers are faithful and diligent, that careless and slovenly 
work will simply not be accepted at all, the type of paper repre- 
sented by the first two classes noted will rapidly disappear. The 
vigilance of all teachers cannot, however, safely be relaxed from 
the beginning of the secondary period to the end, or to the point 
at which the pupil’s character has become definitely formed. 
Education is a stern process for the learner as well as for the 
teacher and it is long before the youth ceases to be inclined to 
choose the pathway of least resistance. 

It is not easy to identify the lesson-learner and to be reason- 
ably sure that we have differentiated him from the careless pu- 
pil. Let us bear in mind that lesson-learning seems to be in itself 
rather a definite attitude toward learning. The pupil does not 
realize that what is learned in the classroom has any relation to 
what goes on outside the classroom. There are various symp- 
toms which can be noted. 

In the first place, such a pupil is likely to be a lesson- 
learner in other subjects in which it is easier to identify him by 
direct testing. (See chapter iv.) 

When a paper is handed back for correction, the lesson- 
learner will sometimes change words and usages which are en- 
tirely correct, in his random attempts to satisfy the teacher. A 
variety of indications of this general type will often disclose to 
the observant and thoughtful teacher the character of the learn- 
ing. 

In studying the problem, the results of a specific test, taken 
in connection with other evidence, will often disclose the type. 
For this purpose, a list of review words is made up and dictated 
in column. At a later period, the same words are dictated in sen- 
tences. The lesson-learner will show a tendency to spell words 
correctly when they are dictated in column and to misspell when 
they appear in sentences, or at least to spell distinctly better on 


526 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


the column test than on the sentence test. The true non-learner, 
on the other hand, misspells about equally in the two tests and 
for the most part the same words. 

When the lesson-learner is definitely identified, he becomes 
a problem case in this particular sense, usually corrective rather 
than remedial in type, and the teacher sets to work to make him 
realize what he is studying for. 

The process of distinguishing the non-learner from the les- 
son-learner and from the careless or indifferent pupil has thus 
been noted in part. The non-learner is further likely to be re- 
fractory on both the teaching tests and the final test, while the 
other classes show a clean record on both. The non-learner is 
not necessarily a problem case, but rather a slow learner. If he 
shows steady improvement, the latter is probably the case. He 
is always kept in the class presentation group and in addition he 
makes up a list of words for individual study. On the other 
hand, the non-learner may show little or no improvement and in 
that case he becomes a remedial case. 

For the sake of the most thoroughgoing teaching and inten- 
sive study of the individual pupil problem, it is convenient and 
desirable to tabulate results on each block of words in something 
like the fashion suggested by the scheme which is exhibited in 
Table XVIII. We then have a sheet for each block for each pu- 
pil. The sheets are gathered in a loose leaf binder and thus an ac- 
curate record is assembled for the study of pupil progress and 
for the study and rearrangement of word lists. 

If this program of systematic training is faithfully and intel- 
ligently carried out, what may be expected? Of course the an- 
swer will depend somewhat on the school and upon its constitu- 
ency. It will depend most of all upon the richness of the intel- 
lectual background which the school is able to build up through 
a good kindergarten-primary, abundant reading material and 
well-organized courses in the content subjects. It will depend 
upon these elements in the experience of the pupil because upon 
them in turn depends the growth of the child’s active vocabu- 





PURE-PRACTICE TEACHING 














TABLE XVIII 
———————<———_—_—————————————————=—=—==—==_==—=" 
BA Mi ts, ca rat. Teen) eh 

Words Pre-test pt chaos F perc 
DuPAULOME ss Ssiec dais vteas 
i OLE trae ve SUR I 
B. SWOCTED. 0.6 wiedn ces 
4. Subtraction......... 
SHU AZOY Ce bai eds oes eee 
Sr PAE are cists Mies len Neeoee 
y alge a On ON SAREE ee x 
Bettie ax dw de cls diclats — 
Riot PAAR MTC ae Cl a oles oh Po 
ro, Skipping .........;. a 
FSP OUMOUL Savuiey oni’ sit x x x 
TAD EOIOW. 1a) semen eles bh 
ERMINBCOS ge 5 citiers « Sxl ole & | 
SBE Pig a dead hoards x aves 
TREO OW Sica o ais tikes ahs 4% 
BO nt Vet ie Nis Gud atenia 42 
TINE oe WEEE: 2, As whl 
BS Wine ys 62 ESA x ra 
TO? OMSesi ce ec acc ee ey 6 nha 
DOE TCACD SF uid eas os «kt aE 
Be OEY cs N lalla. en 
ie SATS hs Re Op Ne hi foes SEA 
BUTTE es ees eas x 
SAU VERMET Occ et nc esas x 





527 


528 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


lary. Assuming that these matters are provided for much as 
this volume proposes, an outcome like the following may be 
looked for. 

1. There will be a period of much teaching required in the 
earlier years of the secondary period, let us say, the third and 
fourth grades and well into the fifth, as the process of training 
overtakes the active vocabulary, in respect to both recognition 
of single correct word spellings and to training in word sense. 

2. During the fifth grade or thereabout, the number of pu- 
pil releases on successive teaching lists will begin to show a 
steady increase and so will the number of words omitted on suc- 
cessive blocks of words and the number of pupils working on in- 
dividual lists. Correspondingly, the number of pupils in succes- 
sive class presentation groups will show a steady decrease. 

3. By the end of the sixth grade there will be few if any 
children left in the spelling classes save problem pupils who still 
show defective word sense, defective recognition of correct spell- 
ings for the active vocabulary, and a defective spelling con- 
science. An occasional misspelling may be found among the re- 
leased pupils, and this will continue to be the case more or less 
throughout life, but there will be no systematic misspelling. 
Such occasional misspellings are ordinarily traceable to that pe- 
culiar lapse known as a “slip of the pen,” or else to a sort of 
overlooking of an individual word. As in the case of usage prin- 
ciples, it is not a minimal allowable number of such slips or 
oversights which is the criterion, but rather the revelation which 
they offer, all the evidence being considered, as to the real char- 
acter of the individual’s spelling adaptation. If the pupil or 
older person regularly makes such slips or oversights, we must 
conclude that he cannot spell. The pupil has learned to spell 
when he uses correctly all words which he has learned, when he 
effectively desires to spell all words correctly, when he verifies 
all spellings of which he is uncertain. 

What if we find, as we do find, a good many instances of 
chronic bad spelling in the seventh and later grades? 





PURE-PRACTICE TEACHING 529 


The prima facie assumption is that teaching in the earlier 
years has not been faithfully and intelligently done. Especially 
is it probable that the earlier teachers have ignored or have been 
lax about the functional test and have not cleaned up their cor- 
rective cases. Or it may equally well be that they have been lax 
in accepting papers in content subjects which contain careless or 
indolent misspelling. Or again, it may be that content subject 
teachers in the junior or senior high school or college are accept- 
ing careless papers and are thus breaking down spelling morale. 

On the other hand, a sudden access of intellectual interest in 
junior high school subjects may have rapidly expanded the ac- 
tive vocabulary beyond the rate at which the pupil’s organized 
spelling adaptation will take up new words. This is especially 
apt to be the case when a pupil passes from a formalistic ele- 
mentary school to a junior high school in which he suddenly en- 
counters a broad range of intellectual content. In general, in this 
case two courses are open. Hither the chronic bad spellers are 
identified as true problem cases of the experiential type and a 
remedial group is organized for application of the normal spell- 
ing technique, or else each deficient pupil is required to form an 
individual word list and hold himelf responsible for repairing his 
deficiencies. In no case is a regular course in spelling organized 
on the vague plea that “pupils at this age need it.” When a 
school adopts such a course it assumes a responsibility which be- 
longs to the pupil and it may rest assured that similar provisions 
will be equally appropriate up to and including the graduate and 
professional level. A course is organized for deficients only when 
such pupils are positively identified as such. Pupils are not in- 
cluded when their defects are simply the result of carelessness, 
of expanding active vocabulary, or of the negligence of content 
subject teachers. The principle is, find out where the trouble is 
and focus efforts upon its correction. 

The senior high school should have no deficient spellers ex- 
cept identified remedial cases. Nor should it accept such on the 


530 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


complacent theory that they must be remedial cases because 
they do not spell. 
THE REMEDIAL CASE 

The corrective cases have already been dealt with. In an es- 
sential sense, the whole teaching procedure is founded upon 
identification and correction of faults in the normal learning 
process. There remain the definitely remedial problems. 

Now these remedial cases may be traceable to causes which 
make the pupil a defective learner in any school subject. A given 
case may be mental and traceable to the fact that the pupil is 
of subnormal mentality. If so, he has no place in the school for 
normal children. It may be learning: the pupil has not mastered 
spelling when he should have done so, or it may be he is an ob- 
stinate case of lesson-learning. The cause may be emotional, or 
physical, or volitional in the general sense. If so, the pupil is 
quite as likely to be deficient in other subjects as in spelling. It 
may be psycho-physical, a vision or hearing case. If that is so, 
the consequences may rest with peculiar weight on spelling. 

A true defective learner of the remedial type peculiar to 
spelling is pretty apt to be a pupil who has some trouble with his 
word image formation, and such trouble is in turn likely to be 
traceable to defects in vision or hearing, speech or handwriting. 

A pupil who has defects in vision or hearing may still learn 
to spell because he has compensatory advantages. Defect in 
vision, for instance, may be offset by singularly acute hearing or 
kinaesthetic images. The loss of learning power traceable to 
sensory defects may be made good by unusual determination. 
In general, however, defects in any of these sensory fields handi- 
cap the learner and may well result in non-learning. If then we 
find a pupil whose misses on teaching and final tests are ab- 
normal and if he shows little or no improvement, we shall begin 
to study him as a remedial case. 

1. His medical examination is looked up to see what his rec- 
ord was on vision. If his vision is found to be poor, remedial at- 
tention consists in persuading the parents to provide treatment 





PURE-PRACTICE TEACHING 531 


by a competent oculist or in securing the appropriate relief 
through other agencies than the family. It may be stated in 
passing that, while the routine medical inspection will be likely 
to disclose all ordinary defects in vision, there are sometimes 
obscure defects which can be reached only by the specialist in 
this field. 

2. Similarly, hearing is canvassed. Remedial treatment in 
this field is much less likely to be effective, because poor hearing 
is often due to lesions which cannot be repaired. Something can 
often be done, however. In cases where defective hearing which 
does not approach deafness is established, a simple reseating of 
the pupil so that the presentation can be taken at maximum au- 
dibility is usually helpful and may in time solve the learning 
problem. 

3. Speech defects, by interfering with the development of 
normal word sense, may be causing difficulty. Early treatment 
by a specialist in this field is of course eminently desirable. Such 
treatment is, however, often not obtainable and sometimes it is 
ineffective. In any case, the retention of such a pupil in the pres- 
entation group in which so much emphasis is placed on vocaliza- 
tion is unlikely to be productive of learning and it may cause 
positive mischief. Accordingly, we fall back on the other images, 
especially vision and handwriting, and arrange a program of in- 
dividual practice. 

4. Defective handwriting is probably the cause of much bad 
spelling, especially when the pupil has never attained the hand- 
writing adaptation and still draws instead of writes. When we 
reflect that practically all bad spelling is bad written spelling, 
the handwriting image, both in its visual and in its kinaesthetic 
aspects, looms large. Hence, when the pupil draws instead of 
writes, or writes illegibly, he tends to fail to form the images 
which he uses in the discourse which reveals his actual spelling. 

The appropriate remedial treatment is obvious. The hand- 
writing should be remedied for its own sake and because it tends 
to inhibit learning in spelling as well as in the whole language- 


532 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


arts field. The pupil is sent to the remedial teacher to begin his 
handwriting over again. Especially should inquiries be made to 
make sure that a normally left-handed pupil is not being made 
to write with his right hand. 

Of course the handwriting defect is not strictly psycho- 
physical in character, but, in its tendency to block the formation 
of the handwriting image, the outcome is much the same as 
would be the case if it were psycho-physical. 

5. The foregoing by no means exhausts the list of the causes 
which underlie the behavior of the so-called congenital bad 
speller. 

The large majority of pupils, however, who are in reality 
remedial and not simply corrective cases and who do not classify 
as mental, experiential, physical, emotional, or volitional cases 
are remediable under one or more of the heads above enumerat- 
ed. There remain unusual and obscure maladies or mental mal- 
adjustments which no doubt occasionally influence learning 
under any type and which lie beyond the scope of the present 
study. 

THE NUMBER FACTS 


The automatic use of a definitely limited field of number 
combinations seems to be fundamental to any assimilative ex- 
perience whatever in the field of mathematics. We refer to the 
addition combinations of the digits, sometimes called the num- 
ber space, and to the multiplication table up to 12. The estab- 
lishment of such adjustments to automatic use is, like spell- 
ing, an instance of pure practice learning of major importance. 
The reader should, however, have in mind a clear distinction be- 
tween such automatic use and the fundamental number con- 
cepts. 

Fundamental to any possible thinking in mathematics is the 
presence in the apperceptive mass of the primary concepts of 
number itself and of those combinations of number into other 
numbers which are obtained by adding, taking from, multiply- 
ing, and dividing. Such primary concepts arise to some extent 


PURE-PRACTICE TEACHING 300 


out of the natural experience of childhood and to some extent 
the appropriate experiences must be provided in the early school 
life. These primary concepts are not the processes of addition, 
subtraction, multiplication, and division, nor is the concept of 
fractional parts coextensive with the notion of fractions. Now 
the acquisition of the primary concept does not call for the ap- 
plication of any of the types of teaching which are appropriate 
to the secondary period. It is a matter of providing experiences 
out of which certain ideational content can arise and not a mat- 
ter of organizing experience into coherent attitudes toward the 
world or into systems of thought. Practically speaking, the dan- 
ger is that the pupil will learn to deal with figures before he has 
acquired the ideas of which figures are the symbols. Mastery, 
however, does apply, and an essential part of administrative 
technique is to make sure that children in fact do have these pri- 
mary concepts before they pass on to the stage of pure practice 
learning with which we have to deal in this chapter. (See also 
chapter xili, p. 209.) 

The objective in this particular portion of our field has been 
defined by implication above. Concretely, it is substantially 
that the pupil shall practice until such a combination as 4+-7 
brings the instant response 11 and such a one as 87 brings the 
instant response 56. To put it in another way, the pupil who has 
mastered such automatic response has the image 56 in mind 
whenever he encounters the relation 87. Further, the re- 
sponse is subconscious, or at least not focal. When the pupil has 
occasion to use the facts, as he does have occasion whenever he 
encounters an arithmetical situation, an ideational stimulus calls 
forth the appropriate number-fact response without interrupt- 
ing the stream of thought which is applied to the problem itself. 
The reader can verify the principle by testing his own automatic 
responses. He will find that he can utilize such responses while 
thinking of something else. The experience is especially striking 
when one is repeating verbally sentences or whole passages 
which from long repetition have become automatic, a very famil- 


534 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


iar poem for instance. Not only can one do so while an entirely 
different stream of thought occupies the focus of consciousness, 
but it requires a definite effort to attend to the thought of such 
a passage while it is being repeated, even though there is at the 
time no other particular content focal. 

Now, a teacher in the later grades of the elementary period 
or even in the high school who comes upon a problem case in 
arithmetic frequently gives the verdict, “Does not know his 
tables,” and the verdict is justified. The defect is likely to be 
one of three types. 

1. The pupil in truth does not know. He cannot tell what 
87 is because he has no system of recall which will give him 
the answer. 

2. More often, even if he has the answer, he is obliged to 
set up a cumbersome system of recall. Such pupils will ordinar- 
ily be found to be repeating the table until they come to the re- 
quired combination. They can recall only if they set up the 
rhythm in which they learned. You often see their lips moving 
as they rapidly repeat 8X1 is 8; 8X2is 16; 8X3 is24; ... 
and so on until they reach 8X7 is 56. Naw this pupil is Seat! 
capped in his essential arithmetical learning, which is a process 
of severe reflection, because his attention is distracted from re- 
flection to the recall of number facts. At the best, he is a slow 
worker on assimilative material; at the worst, his learning is in- 
hibited altogether. 

3. Occasionally, perhaps more often than we think, the pu- 
pil responds with more or less facility to the number facts, such 
as 87, but he is unable to use them in the reflective process be- 
cause he is dealing only with figures and his figures do not stand 
for number concepts. Most problems require judgments in 
which number relations are the terms. For instance, the pupil 
has to decide whether 440 8 is greater or less than 5,280-1.5. 
He guesses because neither set of figures stands for any sort of 
valid reality in his mind. The writer was once visiting a school- 





PURE-PRACTICE TEACHING 535 


room in which a class was glibly dealing with facts relating to 
linear measure. Inches were being converted into feet and feet 
were being added to other feet and inches. Thinking to test out 
the presence of the underlying concepts, I asked the children 
several questions, amongst others how tall they thought I might 
be. One youngster hazarded a guess of 30 feet. These youths 
were a sophisticated lot and I cherish no illusions that the an- 
Swer was inspired by an exaggerated opinion of the superintend- 
ent of schools. Rather, the children were dealing with figures, 
and their manipulation, for which there was no conceptual foun- 
dation. 
TECHNIQUE 

Once sure of the conceptual foundation, the process of mak- 
ing the responses automatic is a piece of pure practice, in which 
the pupils are trained to respond automatically. 

No doubt, if there were time enough and motivation suffi- 
cient for the purpose, all the number facts would be rendered 
automatic in the manner which is theoretically best, that is, by 
repeating them in concrete problem situations. So does the 
worker at the vocational level who is dealing constantly with 
such facts as are best used automatically. The calculator, for 
example, sometimes finds that he is retaining in memory without 
effort the logarithms of numbers which are frequently used. But 
there is not time enough in the process of general education for 
this natural method of learning to operate, there is not motiva- 
tion enough, and there is too much distraction in other equally 
important interests. Hence, a specific, artificial technique must 
be set up. 

The first stage, begun in the primary school simultaneously 
with the forming of number concepts, is the learning of the num- 
ber space and the tables as a mere matter of recall. The tech- 
nique developed out of long experience and customarily used in 
schools is perhaps as good as any. The same system of image 
formation used in spelling is applicable. The child establishes 
images of 4+6=10; 8X4=32; 32--4==8, and so on, as the 


536 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


result of many experiences visualized, heard, voiced, and writ- 
ten. Further he establishes them in a series of sequential frame- 
works of number concepts. 


4A+I=5 4XI= 4 
4-+2=6 4X2= 8 
4+3=7 4X3=12 
4+4=8 4X4=16 


Further still, he establishes them as subtraction and division as 
well as addition and multiplication. He practices until the 
teacher is sure that he has his system of recall established and 
can use it forward and backward, as multiplication or division, 
addition or subtraction. — 

We need not go into the testing of this stage in detail. The 
method of testing which we have explained in spelling particu- 
larly, and indeed in both the science type and the language-arts 
type as well, applies here. The essence of the matter and the 
purpose of testing is an inventory of the pupil’s reactions which 
will disclose: first, the points at which reteaching needs to be 
done; second, the pupils who have not yet mastered and the 
items in which non-mastery exists; third, the pupils who have 
mastered. The scored test of the class group performance is not 
only wholly valueless for teaching purposes but it is often posi- 
tively harmful and misleading. It is misleading because it iden- 
tifies neither the pupils nor the items which need reteaching. It 
is harmful because it tends to set up in the minds of teacher and 
pupils both the passing-grade and the part-learning attitudes 
toward learning. | 

As soon as the number facts have thus been learned, both as 
conceptual content* and as systems of recall, the process of 
building up automatic facility begins. One hundred twenty-one 

*It should not be inferred that the entire range must be built up, by specific 
concrete experiences, as a body of conceptual content. Rather, the pupil practices 
with concrete material in the simple combinations which can easily be visualized 


and otherwise concretely experienced until the teacher is satisfied that he has gen- 
eralized the notion of number as distinct from the symbols of number. 





PURE-PRACTICE TEACHING 5a7 


facts in the number space and 169? in the multiplication table 
constitute the field. If we add the related subtraction and divi- 
sion facts the number is doubled. The crux of the matter here is 
practicing response without time interval sufficient for conscious 
recall. 

The quick perception devices with which most teachers in 
the early grades of the elementary school are familiar are the 
appropriate means. Probably the most serviceable device is the 
flash card. For this purpose the facts to be practiced are printed, 
or plainly written in round hand, on cards large enough for the 
purpose. The card and its inscription should be plainly visible 
from any part of the room. 

The teacher selects a small pack of cards and exposes them 
one aiter another for a fraction of a second each, the class re- 
sponding in unison. Thus “78” is the number fact exposed. 
The class responds “56.” There must be 10o per cent control 
technique and the movement of the cards must be smooth, clear, 
and rapid. At the moment of exposure, the card must be held 
perfectly still. The group under training must be so seated or 
gathered that the card is plainly and easily visible and so that it 
will not need to be moved laterally to bring it within the lines of 
vision of different pupils. The teacher will need to practice her- 
self in exposing the cards until she can do so rapidly and with 
entire facility. 

Now it may be necessary at first to practice with a single 
card until the pupils fall into step and make the instant response. 
The tyro in this work, in the moment of awkwardness at the be- 
ginning, often holds the card in view until she gets the response 
as a matter of conscious recall. Of course this is no training at 
all. Better begin with a card such as 22 to which the children 

* Experimentation seems to show that, while many children infer the bond 
2-+-1, as a matter of automatic response, from the bond 1-+2, and the bond 4X3 
from the bond 34, others do not. Hence, for mastery purposes, the teacher 
needs to check learning on each bond on both its aspects. Further, to omit the 


bonds which include o is to leave a gap in learning which often proves singularly 
troublesome later. 


538 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


will respond as a matter of course, and then slowly increase the 
number of cards. If the response is not instant, the card is 
thrown one side into a pile by itself and it is included in the prac- 
tice for the next period. The children respond in unison, and, if 
some individuals tend to lag the fraction of a second and thus 
hang on the responses of the others, it does not greatly matter. 
They are practicing, and the defects in their practice will be cor- 
rected in the period of individual training which comes later. 

It is convenient to divide the cards into packs, each pack 
corresponding to a block of number facts, using much the same 
system which has been described in the case of spelling. The 
facts most often used at the stage at which the children are at 
present working in arithmetic are used first and the several 
blocks are mastered in succession. 

After the warming-up period, during which the pupils are 
getting into the swing of the practice, the teacher will note as 
she runs through a pack that certain individuals respond in- 
stantly to every card exposed. These children are released for 
the present. Others about whom she is not certain are given a 
period of individual practice, and, if successful, they in turn are 
released. And so on until the group under training is reduced 
to the problem cases, who are set aside for special study. 

As the process of training goes on in this way, testing also 
goes on: testing of the pupil on automatic response; retesting 
the recall, apart from automatic response; and appraising the 
relative difficulty of individual fact items. A written test of au- 
tomatic response is obviously impossible. 

The training of children in this ultimate mastery of the 
number facts should not be thought of as a process antecedent 
_ to the reflective learning which arithmetic proper implies. (See 
chapter xiii.) Much as the teaching of correct spelling is a proc- 
ess of weaving correct spelling into the pupil’s discourse, so the 
development of automatic response to number facts is a matter 
of weaving such use into the reflective processes which the child 
uses in his assimilative experience in the mastery of arithmetical 





PURE-PRACTICE TEACHING 539 


principles. Hence, the training is likely to continue from the be- 
ginning of the secondary period in arithmetic for a year or more. 
The situation is unlike that found in spelling in two important 
respects. In the first place, training in the latter is applied to an 
ever-growing active vocabulary, while training in the number 
facts is limited to a maximum field of 580 items. In the second 
place, the vocabulary becomes active only over a period of years, 
while most if not all the number facts are needed by the pupil as 
soon as the study of arithmetic begins. 


OTHER USES 


While spelling and automatic response to number facts rep- 
resent the chief use to be made of our second pure practice sub- 
type, practice in automatic response, there are numerous in- 
stances in which the principles of practice in one or the other of 
the subtypes can be usefully employed. In general, wherever 
training in rapid manipulation or automatic response is needed, 
this teaching type applies. Ordinarily this form of teaching is 
used only after some fundamental adaptation has been made in 
one of the other types. It is apt to be more serviceable in the 
field of special education, notably in vocational training, than in 
the field of general education. Typical instances are enumerated 
below. 

1. Rapid and accurate footing of columns of figures, and 
other calculations, which are used frequently enough to justify 
special training. This process is of course subsequent to mastery 
of the fundamental arithmetical principles. 

2. Developing speed and accuracy in typewriting. 

3. Numerous specific processes in the field of practical arts 
where skill is to be built upon the foundation of a practical arts 
adaptation. 

4. Certain cases in factoring, notably the forms x?—y’, x°+ 
2xy-+y’, ax*+bx-++C, which are of such frequent occurrence 
that it is sometimes worth while to develop a semi-automatic 
skill, that is to say such familiarity that the characteristic situa- 


540 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


tions are readily recognized and the manipulations rapidly per- 
formed. 

5. Paradigms in foreign language after the reading adapta- 
tion has been formed, sometimes in a grammar course. (See 
chapter xxv.) The training process here is strictly parallel to 
that for developing automatic response to number facts. 

6. Rules and formulas. This field used to be greatly over- 
worked, so much so that a rule was often learned quite apart 
from the underlying adaptation. Of late years, perhaps the pen- 
dulum has swung too far in the opposite direction. It is some- 
times true that a rule or a formula thoroughly memorized makes 
the difference between an adaptation which can be put to instant 
use and one which cannot. Probably the best illustration is the 
circle formulas, c=2z7r and a=zr’. The adaptation here is a 
logical conviction that there is a necessary relation between the 
circumference and area of a circle and its radius. Perhaps it is 
essential that the student shall convince himself that as a matter 
of fact these relations are expressed by the formulas with which 
we are familiar. The use of this relationship, however, becomes 
almost as important in various studies of the secondary period 
as the multiplication table. Hence, it is a matter of economy to 
make the formulas a matter of automatic response and perma- 
nent retention. 





PART IV 
ADMINISTRATIVE TECHNIQUE 


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CHAPTER XXVIII 
THE INTEGRITY OF THE SCHOOL 


S we have developed our study of the teaching process, 

A first as control technique and then as operative tech- 

nique, we have also been dealing from point to point 

with another phase of teaching activity which has to do with the 

study of the individual pupil, with his guidance, and with the 
control of the progress of his educational development. 

The school is a unit in its influence upon the pupil. Every 
experience which he has in the school tends to modify his atti- 
tude toward life. Such experiences may be organized and fo- 
cused upon common objectives or they may be leit to inhibit or 
counteract one another. Under the baneful influence of the fac- 
tory mental stereotype, the school may be forgetful that it is 
dealing with organisms in the shape of human beings and act as 
if every pupil were a piece of plastic material capable of being 
wrapped up after each operation and of being found unchanged 
when it may be convenient to apply the next. The pupil is indeed 
plastic, but growth in manifold directions goes on whether the 
school operates or not. Unless the needful administrative pro- 
cedure is properly conceived and adequately carried out, the 
educational product is purely in the hands of chance—it may be 
brilliant success and a normally adjusted personality or it may 
be wretched failure and a perverted, unhappy, and vicious per- 
sonality. 

In the hypothetical school consisting of Mark Hopkins and 
his pupil Garfield, or in the very real Drumtochty School under 
old Domsie, all these phases of technique coalesce in the person- 
ality of a great teacher. Unhappily, perhaps, society is long past 
that possibility. The school is organized and must be organized 
on the principle of division of labor, but there is all the differ- 


543 


544 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


ence in the world between the school which is a sort of pedantic 
factory and one which is in some degree an expansion of Mark 
Hopkins or of the old humanist. In the one, the pupil encounters 
a series of more or less erudite lesson-hearers, periodically is fed 
into some testing machine, and occasionally, if he is very good or 
very bad, has an interview with a person who is classified as an 
administrative officer. In the other, the whole pupil goes to 
school to every teacher, to his personnel officer, and to the prin- 
cipal of the school or his assistant. Each of the latter in a school 
which is at all well organized to secure true educational products 
is wholly teacher or, if you prefer, educator. True, this person 
may be using history and ariother mathematics and a third phys- 
ics as media of education, while a fourth is studying the pupil 
quite apart from any course, and a fifth is occupied with arrang- 
ing a pupil’s schedule or interviewing a teacher or parent. Nev- 
ertheless, to the extent that they are all teachers, and teachers 
in the same sense of the word, the school succeeds or fails in its 
principal mission. 

It seems passing strange that anybody should feel it neces- 
sary to point out the principle. In point of fact, however, the 
tendency of schools to become organized upon that theory of the 
division of labor which is appropriate to the factory is so marked 
that when one speaks of administration in a group of school peo- 
ple the latter are apt to think of the duties of the principal or 
superintendent and not of those of the teacher. Conversely, 
when we speak of teaching, the administrator often thinks only 
of the testing of the results of those who work in the classroom. 
Students come to the university to prepare themselves for “ad- 
ministrative” positions. Courses which go to the root of the 
problem of teaching make small appeal to many such since they 
feel that they are not destined to teach. Similarly, courses 
which are primarily administrative in character are seldom elect- 
ed by those who are expecting to teach, albeit they will have 
every day, or should have, a number of administrative problems 
to meet. Now an administrative problem in the school means 





THE INTEGRITY OF THE SCHOOL 545 


nothing except it is related to teaching; a teaching problem 
means nothing except as it is related to the growth of pupils. 
The fundamental profession is teaching. True, one may special- 
ize in that aspect of teaching which is found in the preadolescent 
period, another in science- or language-teaching; another in the 
control of pupil conduct; another in case work; but all are prac- 
ticing the fundamental art of teaching. 

Administration is usually confounded with what is more 
properly called “executive management.” The school has rela- 
tions with the community. It is probably intrusted with the ap- 
plication of some portion of the law of the land. There must be 
provided funds for its maintenance and systematic controls for 
the expenditure of such funds must be set up. There are various 
activities ancillary to the process of teaching, such as operation 
and maintenance of the school plant, which must be carried on. 
There must be some means of judging the qualifications of teach- 
ers and of employment and dismissal. Hence arises the require- 
ment of executive management usually associated with the prin- 
cipalship or presidency or superintendency, and acting under a 
board of control which represents the body politic. 

The actual functional relationship of the major activities 
concerned with administrative technique proper may be approx- 
imately depicted in the diagram which follows. It is of course 
true that in the small school the executive will also be the co- 
ordinating teacher and the personnel teacher and perhaps also 
a classroom teacher as well. Or one or more classroom teachers 
may also be assigned to co-ordinating and personnel work. We 
are discussing functions and not persons. 

The function of co-ordination of teaching implies, not only 
the intelligent and scientific arrangement of courses, schedules, 
and the like, but it implies a much more important function, 
namely, the recruiting, development, and often training of the 
teaching staff and the supervision of the teaching itself. In the 
small school, a single person may cover the whole field and unite 
this duty with those of the executive. In a large school, the co- 


546 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


ordinating function may also require the services of a teacher 
in each department and, it may be, one or more assistants to the 
co-ordinating officer as well. 

Now the technique of this officer is not only that of a teach- 
er, in so far as he comes directly and indirectly in contact with 
pupils, but even more so as he comes in contact with the teaching 
force. In other words, his relations with the teaching body are 


Executive 


Classroom teacher Co-ordinating teacher Classroom teacher 
Classroom teacher | | Classtoom teacher 
Pupil body 
Classroom teacher ge 
[Reading-room teacher] Personnel teacher | Remedial teacher | 
Pupil-examining teache Visiting teacher 
FIG. 11 


rather those of a teacher than those of a commanding officer. 
There is very little in this volume which deals with the princi- 
ples of teaching which does not also apply to the principles of 
supervision. When the supervisor has before him the need of 
getting a classroom teacher to do a certain thing in a certain 
way, his problem is one of convincing the latter—in other words, 
of generating a learning product, of bringing about an adapta- 
tion. He may command, and in that case he gets a lesson-learn- 
ing product. His task is not done until he has developed what 
may be called “‘pedagogical responsibility.”” He cannot check up 
by frequent inspection alone. The classroom situation when the 
supervisor is present is wholly different from what it is when he 
is absent, unless indeed the teacher is in the attitude of confi- 


THE INTEGRITY OF THE SCHOOL 547 


dence characteristic of the pupil who is taking a valid education- 
al test. The teacher who is concerned chiefly to please the super- 
visor is in the same impossible attitude as the pupil who is study- 
ing only for credits. The situation differs only when we en- 
counter the remedial case. The person who either cannot or will 
not teach cannot expect to be continued in the charge of pupils 
while slow remedial measures calculated to make him an effec- 
tive teacher are undertaken. But a corrective problem case in 
the teacher as well as in the pupil? Assuredly. Even the modern 
industrial enterprise no longer maintains a scrap heap for work- 
men who are at all possible. It does not pay. 

It is a rare case, indeed, that the training of a young teacher 
can be dispensed with as soon as he has taken his degree in edu- 
cation and received his appointment to the teaching staff. The 
most that the school of education can do is to train him into the 
capacity of sound and effective methods of educational study, to 
put him in possession of the technology of his calling, to equip 
him with that body of knowledge and capable use thereof which 
makes him an educational scholar. His professional school 
should not perhaps grant its degree until it has good assurance 
that the candidate is adequately equipped with the academic 
matter which he proposes to use in teaching. But beyond that, 
he must be assimilated into the teaching force of which he has 
become a member, he must for a long time to come be trained 
in the practice of teaching, and, under ideal conditions, his su- 
pervisory officer should be capable of guiding him in his further 
professional and academic study until youth has hardened into 
the mature habit of taking it for granted that study is never 
ended. In the use of his academic material, the young teacher, 
especially at the high-school and junior college level, will tend 
to be unwise in what he teaches, and he must learn wisdom at 
the hands of his own academic department. Just as the pupil’s 
general education ends when he has arrived at educational self- 
dependence, so the period of training in service for the young 
teacher who holds both professional and academic degrees ends 


548 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


only when he arrives at pedagogical maturity and trustworthi- 
ness based upon conviction and not upon conformity. 

The function of co-ordination necessarily includes the se- 
lection and nomination of the new members of the teaching staff. 
For the executive to intervene here, unless on very special occa- 
sions, is not unlike that supervision of study which consists in 
doing the pupil’s work for him. 

If the foregoing reasoning is sound, it follows that all mem- 
bers of the staff who are intrusted with the function of co-ordi- 
nation and supervision should themselves be persons of un- 
doubted educational scholarship, of the necessary academic 
scholarship, and of professional maturity. Obviously, they 
should further possess personalities capable of leading their fel- 
lows. So far as actually organizing and guiding a teaching force 
is concerned, well-nigh hopeless conditions are necessarily cre- 
ated when an immature young man or woman is made responsi- 
ble for the co-ordination of a school. Manners may be never so 
charming, personality never so winning, cleverness never so ad- 
mirable; teachers can neither be trained nor guided nor stimu- 
lated by one who is not himself an educator and a tried-and- 
tested teacher. 

In the organization of the modern school, the personnel 
teacher has an extremely important place. True, every person 
who teaches at all is perforce concerned with the individual 
problems of his pupils. Nevertheless, there must be provided in 
some form teachers who specialize in the study of the personal 
problems of boys and girls just as others specialize in the use of 
mathematics or science or language as media of education. To 
the former come the personnel and problem reports and records 
referred to in the chapters which follow. In their hands is the 
working up of case studies and the assignment of remedial work. 
From the accumulation of evidence in their case folders is the 
decision touching the fundamental educational growth of the 
pupil and of ultimate educational maturity. In their hands is, or 
should be, the government of the pupil body itself and the pro- 





THE INTEGRITY OF THE SCHOOL 549 


tection of the school’s morale. They carry on most of the inter- 
views with parents when pupils have become general school 
problems rather than problems in specific subjects. Finally, they 
are the co-ordinating agency for the school’s system of pupil 
advisers, and in their hands rests the final responsibility in the 
case of conduct cases. 

In a large school, the personnel officer requires a consider- 
able staff. Ideally, there should be an assistant personnel officer 
for perhaps every five hundred pupils beyond the first five hun- 
dred. There are further needed a competent teacher who has 
specialized in educational and psychological testing, a medical 
inspector, and a teacher who has specialized in modern social 
case work. We reiterate the principles that all such staff special- 
ists should fundamentally be teachers, that they should have the 
teacher’s point of view, that they should have acquired what 
may be called “school sense” by actual experience in the class- 
room. The results of an intelligence test, a reading test, any edu- 
cational test, when contemplated with eyes that have become 
accustomed to watching pupils in the learning situation, look 
very different from the same results when viewed simply as sets 
of raw scores, be the statistical analysis never so skilful. The vis- 
iting teacher who is skilled in systematic social work may con- 
tribute valuable findings on conduct cases, but most conduct 
cases start life as learning cases, and half his professional world 
is closed to the eyes of the social case worker who is not also a 
skilful teacher possessed of a sense of teaching situations. The 
number of such staff specialists needed of course varies with the 
size of the school and still more with the character of the school’s 
constituency. Up to an enrolment of five hundred at the most, in 
an average school constituency a single personnel teacher should 
be able, with the assistance of the school physician, to perform 
all the necessary testing and visiting and interviewing. 

The government of a school is not a military problem nor 
yet an old-fashioned police problem, though at times the pupil 


550 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


body may require a great deal of policing. Good order can 
doubtless be secured by anybody who is possessed of the neces- 
sary personal address, but not self-control and a sense of con- 
duct values. Government, like all else connected with the school, 
is concerned with learning products. It is therefore a teaching 
problem. Every teacher in the school is a responsible factor in 
the government of the school or else he is not a teacher. The per- 
sonnel officer with his organization is the appropriate co-ordi- 
nating force here, just as the supervisor of instruction is the co- 
ordinating force in that field, but co-ordination is his function 
and not direct action. The.teacher who refers all his conduct 
problems to the personnel office is a weak teacher, and the school 
which is organized on such a basis simply ceases to be a school 
at all—it becomes merged in the personality of its personnel 
officer. 

Government implies morale. With increasing enrolments 
and preoccupation with academic teaching, the tendency in large 
high schools and colleges is to try to devise some machinery 
of constraint which will operate automatically. It cannot be 
done. A multitude of environmental influences operate upon the 
school—athletics, debates, a great many so-called extracurricu- 
lar activities, the home, the community, the press. There are 
no extracurricular activities, and nothing which influences the 
tone and public opinion of the school is remote from its educa- — 
tional concern. Athletics or fraternities are as much matters of 
the curriculum as language or science. For the most part, these 
things are examples of the appreciation type of teaching and the 
personnel staff are the teachers. Every year we are treated to 
scandals which bring some school or college into entirely unde- 
sirable publicity. With rare exceptions, the causation lying back 
of the incident is a period, longer or shorter, of neglect of school 
morale or of operation under the delusion of automatic control. 
Either the school has become slack or else it has not been sys- 
tematically organized to care for this major element in its life. 
In the end, publicity is deprecated because it “injures the good 


THE INTEGRITY OF THE SCHOOL 551 


name of Alma Mater.” If Alma Mater had looked after her 
character, her reputation would have taken care of itself. 

The mastery formula is as applicable to the government and 
morale of the school as to any of its classroom activities. The 
general policy of the school is the teaching. The behavior of the 
pupil body is the tested result. The personnel officer who ap- 
proaches his task in a scientific spirit is ever observing, noting, 
checking up the evidences of group morale. He finds undesir- 
able tendencies here and there. He follows them back to the 
causation which is at work. He modifies his policy to meet the 
situation. 

It is probably no more true that strong personality is needed 
in the chief personnel officer than it is needed in every other 
teacher, but the consequences of employing a weak teacher here 
are more fatal and far reaching, and are apt to be more spectac- 
ular than in other cases. Too often a person is appointed who 
comes with academic credentials and, it may be, creditable at- 
tainments in the staff work required by the function, but not 
possessed of the strength of character requisite for the control 
and guidance of a student body in which may easily be several 
stronger personalities. The board of education thrusts its head 
in the sand and declares that all is well. The outcome is what 
we too often see: a school or college in fact committed to the 
guidance of a few strong students, immature and possessed not 
only of the normal self-assurance of youth but of a cockiness 
born of their sense of real superiority. The end result is a de- 
plorable lowering of moral standards in the whole younger gen- 
eration in the community. Far better close the doors of the in- 
stitution than to trust its pupil guidance to a weak man or a 
weak woman. 

As we have followed the teaching process through its various 
phases and types, we have discussed in each the features of ad- 
ministrative technique which are essential to the attainment of 
the learning products and the care of problem pupils. It remains 
to consider the principles which apply to the school as a whole 
and to all the types of teaching. 


CHAPTER XXIX 
PUPIL ADMINISTRATION 


| “( HE foundation of administrative technique we conceive 
to be in a clear apprehension of the terms ability, ad- 
justment, performance, behavior and in a just evalua- 
tion of their relative significance in the educative process. 

By “ability” is meant the resources of every kind which the 
individual has within himsélf and which enable him to learn. 
The term must be allowed to include all types of native ability 
and all types of acquired ability as well. 

By “adjustment” we refer to the modifications which have 
been made or are being made in the individual’s attitude toward 
his environment and in his capacity to deal with his environ- 
ment. While the ease with which he makes a new adaptation, ac- 
quires a new bit of learning, will depend upon his ability at the 
time, the ability is one thing and the adaptation is another. 

By “performance” we mean the use which the individual 
makes of a given learning product on a given occasion, not the 
use which he is able to make but the use which, as a matter of 
fact, he does make. Again, performance will doubtless depend 
to some extent upon ability and upon the adjustment already 
made, but performance, adjustment, and ability are still notions 
to be kept distinct in our thinking. Further, performance always 
depends, more or less, upon circumstances—motivation, bodily 
condition, emotional state, for instance—and upon skill in the 
art required by performance. For example, I have three stu- 
dents in a professional course. All three have mastered the prin- 
ciple which I have been developing. The difference between the 
three in the ease with which they have learned, and in the peda- 
gogical exertions I have been obliged to employ in making the 
idea register, depends upon the range of individual ability in the 

| 552 


PUPIL ADMINISTRATION 553 


particular learning situation in which the three have found them- 
selves. They now submit papers of widely different values as per- 
formance, and I know why. The first returns an excellent report; 
the second a well-written but meager paper; the third a prolix 
jumble of badly written paragraphs. The first student is inter- 
ested and feels inclined to develop the subject. The second feels 
no corresponding impulse. The third is as interested as the first, 
and, otherwise tested, has a competent understanding of the sub- 
ject matter; but he woefully lacks skill in English composition. 
So it frequently is with a scored test in reading or arithmetic or 
French or any other subject; the test performance is not evi- 
dence either for or against the presence of the fundamental 
adaptation or series of adaptations. 

The tendency of teachers and administrative officers, espe- 
cially in recent years, has been to exalt ability and performance 
and to leave adjustment out of account. Of course, the exact re- 
verse is the only possible educative procedure. Adjustment or 
learning, adaptation or the learning product, is entitled to the 
center of the stage. Measurement of either ability or perform- 
ance is valuable only as it makes possible analysis of the condi- 
tions which are essential to the learning process and of the re- 
sults of learning. 

By “behavior” we mean the pupil’s general conduct of his 
school life and out-of-school life. Strictly speaking of course, 
performance is behavior, but for the purposes of our discussion 
we prefer the broader meaning of the term, that which it has in 
ordinary conversation. There is an element of behavior as well 
as of performance in the three students’ papers referred to 
above. In the first and third we recognize an element of specific 
intellectual interest motivating much the same behavior, al- 
though the performance is widely different. In the second, we 
note a different type of behavior, traceable to a lack of specific 
intellectual interest. Again, we observe that a certain pupil is 
unfailingly courteous in all his relations with his fellows and 
with the teachers. This is behavior, and it is traceable to adjust- 


554. THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


ment somewhere in the background. Another pupil exhibits the 
characteristic of sustained application in all he has to do, and 
this is behavior. If our minds were centered on the fidelity with 
which he applied himself to a certain task, we should be think- 
ing of his performance on that task. If we were observing the 
process of his transformation from scatterbrain methods of 
work to the habit of sustained application, adjustment would be 
in our minds. In the long run, behavior is the final evidence of 
the presence of the series of adaptations which constitute adjust- 
ment. 
ABILITY 

The individual pupil, as we meet him at a given level, say 
the end of the junior college period, is an almost infinite com- 
plex of abilities and ability levels. Some of his ability traits are 
inherited and are probably incapable of essential modification. 
Others are inherited, are capable of modification, and may or 
may not have been modified. This student comes to us with a 
rich and varied ideational background, capable of assimilating 
almost any new idea which we may present, while the boy who 
sits next to him in class has an extremely meager background, 
so much so that the intellectual atmosphere of the college class- 
room is only less strange to him than would be the streets of 
New York to the Eskimo. Another youth has acquired an ef- 
fective body of study methods and his mate has not. Another, 
still, has never actually mastered the essential mathematical 
thinking processes. Another is still handicapped by an essential 
defect in his primary reading adaptation. Another is still at a 
childish stage of volitional evolution. And so the tale runs. The 
illustrations cited are by no means fanciful; they are drawn 
from actual analyses verified by corrective or remedial work. 
Such an analysis can of course be made at any level of school 
work, and the principal differences between the lower and the 
higher levels will be found in the fact that a young child has not 
had the time to acquire the range of inabilities which his older 





PUPIL ADMINISTRATION S35 


schoolmate has taken on, nor is he in the presence of learning 
problems which require so great a range of abilities. 

Now it is entirely possible to devise tests of a comprehensive 
character the results of which will correlate with the test results 
revealed by progress in the ordinary type of lesson-hearing 
school, which has no place for either corrective or remedial 
teaching. This has been done with such ingenuity that intelli- 
gence tests now give us, on the whole, our best prognosis of suc- 
cess in the type of school referred to. In other words, if we keep 
on with the kind of teaching to which the pupil has been accus- 
tomed all his days, we shall continue to secure a result which is 
much like that previously secured, and a properly devised test 
will indicate what that result will probably be. What boots it to 
know that a given pupil is of a given level of ability, indiscrim- 
inatingly assigned, when even a modicum of hard pedagogical 
thinking, on the evidence of the test results themselves, will dis- 
close the principle that lack of ability consists to some extent of 
elements which can be and should be corrected? 

The unconvinced counters with the query, ‘““How does it 
happen that some of these children succeed and others do not, 
when they have all alike been exposed to the same teaching, un- 
less it be that fundamental, native, unmodifiable differences are 
accountable for the very defects which you think might be cor- 
rected?” As well inquire, ‘“How does it happen that some of 
these children have had measles and others have not, unless it be 
that native differences in susceptibility account for the matter?” 
The analogy is illuminating and can be pressed far. 

In the main, children escape infectious diseases because 
they happen not to have been exposed to the specific infection. 
Similarly, some children succeed in school because they have 
been fortunate in their homes and in the teachers who guided 
their early steps. They happily caught the right ideas at the 
right time and caught them right. The contrary is true of others. 

A certain child is exposed to an infection and does not con- 
tract the malady because his general health is so aboundingly 


556 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


good that his body defenses throw off the germ; another whose 
general health is not so good comes down with the disease. Nev- 
ertheless the latter’s physical condition is subject to remedial 
treatment such that he will throw off the next infection. Simi- 
larly one pupil in a class is in good physical, emotional, and voli- 
tional condition, and responds readily to instruction; another is 
less happy and makes a defective response with lasting results. 
Nevertheless, the latter’s condition can often be remedied and, 
in that case, he becomes the learning peer of his classmate. 
Finally, a child is prone to pick up every infection which ap- 
pears in the community, simply because he has inherited an or- 
ganism which will not throw off infection. Similarly, some pupils 
in a class learn with difficulty or not at all, simply because they 
have inherited a brain structure which works badly. 
Classification.—It is perhaps useful to make a brief survey 
of the elements which at any time enter into the complex of 
learning capacity in the pupil which we call “ability.” For this 
purpose, we utilize the classification exhibited below, not be- 
cause there is something fundamental in this particular form, 
but because it is convenient for practical purposes as a guide to 
our analysis of pupil difficulties. The divisions are in the order 
which we should properly follow in investigating a problem case. 
t. Psycho-physical elements 
Conditions of the nervous and muscular organism by which stim- 
uli are received and reactions are carried out. Vision, hearing, 
speech control, co-ordination, reaction-time are illustrations 
2. Physical-health elements 
General condition of the bodily organism affecting reaction qual- 
ity. Other things being equal, the pupil who is possessed of sound 
bodily health will learn best 
3. Experiential elements t 
a) General apperceptive mass, that is, the extent of ideational 
content which is presented to the assimilation of new ideas 
6) Organized intellectual content of mind, that is, the learning 
products which have been acquired and correlated and which 





PUPIL ADMINISTRATION 557 


are available to the pupil for thinking his way through new 
situations—what we ordinarily call “preparation.” Reading 
ability and elementary mathematical ability seem in practice 
to be the most important 
c) Methods and habits of learning and study 
4. Emotional elements 
Personal “feelings” toward learning. Confidence, interest, antipa- 
thies toward teachers, admiration of teachers, normal or abnormal 
attitudes toward classmates, overvaluation of self, inferiority feel- 
ings, are illustrations 
5. Volitional elements 
Attitude toward effort. Standards of achievement and perform- 
ance, get-by attitude, the whole series discussed in chapter xxi, are 
illustrations 
6. Mental elements 
Inherent learning capacity, apart from other factors in ability, 
traceable either to inherited qualities in the central nervous sys- 
tem or to the interference of physical malady in the development 
of the latter or to the presence of specific native traits. We may 
keep in mind four distinct terms 
(1) Subnormality 
(2) Degrees of normal mentality 
(3) Disordered mentality 
(4) Special gifts 


The mental element —Now the tendency of teachers in all 
the ages has been to attribute all inabilities to lack of ability of 
the sixth type. If I cannot succeed in teaching this pupil this 
unit, it must be because he lacks brains, especially if other 
teachers have similar troubles. It is a very human sort of atti- 
tude for the teacher to take, but its fallacy is so obvious as hard- 
ly to require argument. The teaching may not improbably be at 
fault, but, whether that is true or not, it is clearly evident that 
many other explanations must be exhausted before we fall back 
on native mental inability as the explanation. No observant 
teacher can fail to recognize the antecedent probability of other 
elements in the problem, and, as a matter of fact, there are too 


558 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


many cases within the reach of every teacher in which pupils 
have passed from failure to marked success to justify an a priori 
pessimistic conclusion. In actual laboratory practice, from the 
kindergarten through the junior college, cases have yielded to 
patient analysis and corrective treatment, in each of the types 
listed above, save the sixth alone. What at first appeared to be 
mental inability was found to be inability of another sort. 

Nevertheless, mental ability is undoubtedly one of the ele- 
ments to be taken into account, and here the distinction between 
normality and subnormality is much more important to adminis- 
trative technique than degrees in normality. Subnormality has 
been defined in substance as inherent inability to make the ad- 
justments which ordinary living requires. In pedagogical terms, 
it implies non-educability. Apparently it is transmitted from par- 
ent to child as a unit character. Now the psychologist in apply- 
ing tests of mentality which can be scored is able to note no 
abrupt change in the progression of scores as he passes from the 
obviously feeble-minded to the obviously normal, and so on up 
to the highest scores found. He finds that those who are identi- 
fied on other grounds as being feeble-minded never show test 
scores of the order which normal individuals show. He is justi- 
fied, when he secures a score which is typical of the feeble-mind- 
ed, in suspecting feeble-mindedness, but he draws no conclusion 
of feeble-mindedness until he has corroborative evidence. The 
pupil is not feeble-minded because he shows a low intelligence 
quotient; he shows a low intelligence quotient because he is 
feeble-minded. When the psychologist is able to say to the 
teacher, ‘“This pupil is feeble-minded,” the teacher has a definite 
diagnosis. Administrative technique probably assigns the pupil 
to custodial care. When, however, the psychologist returns the 
pupil with the verdict, ‘Low intelligence; will not go far,” he is 
invading a field not his own. The teacher’s appropriate response 
is, “That remains to be seen.” 

From the teacher’s point of view, ‘‘border-line” cases must 
be looked upon not as those of pupils whose mentality is in a twi- 





PUPIL ADMINISTRATION 559 


light zone between normality and subnormality, but rather as 
instances in which the psychologist cannot tell whether the pu- 
pil is normal or feeble-minded. Critical observation of the na- 
ture of the pupil’s learning reactions and study of the case by 
searching case-history methods may in time tell the story. If the 
pupil can make the adaptations which the learning products 
found in the lower secondary period imply, we may conclude 
that he is normal. If he cannot do so and we can see wherein 
and why he cannot, we may justly infer subnormality. The is- 
sue still is normality or subnormality. If the final verdict is sub- 
normality, the teacher’s course is plain. If it is normality, the 
teacher’s course is equally plain, but very much more difficult. 

Normal children can learn. Some may require longer than 
others; some require a great deal more assimilative experience 
than others; but in the end all learn. The child who really 
learns, but does so slowly and with difficulty, becomes at once a 
problem case for study in other types of ability, defects in which 
can often be corrected. Relative brightness and dulness are 
terms with which every teacher is perforce familiar in the daily 
practice of the schoolroom, but our evidence is usually drawn 
from success in learning. We identify a pupil as bright because 
he learns rapidly and well and then tend to allow ourselves to 
conclude that he learns well because he is bright. We are far 
from being justified as yet in concluding that mere brightness in 
itself is the exclusive element in successful learning or even in 
rapid learning. The appropriate course for administrative tech- 
nique is to raise the question, ‘““Why does this pupil learn slowly 
and with great difficulty?” and the corresponding question, “‘Is 
the learning of this pupil who apparently learns quickly and suc- 
cessfully real learning?” In brief, the base line to which queries 
are referred is adjustment and not ability. 

The unwarranted assumption that brightness and learning 
capacity are necessarily synonymous and that relative bright- 
“ness is revealed by the high intelligence quotient frequently 
leads to the practice in administrative technique of spurring on 


560 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


the high I.Q. The practice is, we think, founded on inadequate 
analysis of the situation, and it may lead to unhappy results. To 
be sure, if we know that a given pupil is not exerting himself as 
he should, we have good ground for applying wholesome stimuli 
whatever his I.Q. may be. On the other hand, a high I.Q., 
coupled with defective learning, may lead us to set aside the 
case for study; but it is the defective learning which is the occa- 
sion for study and not the I.Q. Such study is equally appropri- 
ate for the low I.Q. To conclude that a pupil who shows a high 
intelligence quotient should forthwith on that ground alone, 
without further analysis, be aroused to better performance is to 
confound adjustment with performance and to make unwar- 
ranted assumptions as to ability. 

The issue of normality or subnormality and degrees of nor- 
mal mentality must not be confounded with disordered mental- 
ity. It occasionally happens, especially during the adolescent 
period, that a pupil is found who is suffering from mental mal- 
ady. Such cases, of course, are wholly beyond the province of 
the teacher; they belong to the specialist in mental diseases. 

Thus far in our discussion of mental ability as a factor to be 
reckoned with in administrative technique, we have confined 
ourselves to its relation to the learning process as such, to the 
making of the adjustments which constitute general education. 
There are undoubtedly other characteristics of the individual 
which must be thought of generically as mental abilities, but 
which are quite different from mere degrees of brightness or dul- 
ness or relative success in learning. These are such individual 
characteristics as originality, power of initiative, ingenuity, spe- 
cial talent, creative genius. The teacher encounters them, or at 
least their potentialities, and, provided indeed he is himself suffi- 
ciently well endowed and educated to recognize them, one of the 
most valuable services he can possibly render to society is to 
identify such in his pupils and put the latter in the way of realiz- 
ing them. So far as we can make out, such talents are inherent 
and are the product of education only in so far as education fur- 





PUPIL ADMINISTRATION 561 


nishes the media in which they can become manifest. That 
teaching practice which in the long run gives the largest oppor- 
tunity for such traits to develop is, other things being equal, the 
best practice. Certain of such inherent characteristics undoubt- 
edly contribute to the success of their possessors in learning cer- 
tain subjects, and they probably inhibit success in other sub- 
jects. To some degree, they can no doubt be identified by ap- 
propriate psychological tests, but to assert that a high I.Q. at- 
tained on a general intelligence test is an indication of genius or 
near-genius is, to say the least, misleading. The distinguishing 
mark of such gifts is their specific and often special character. 
Any one of them may be present in a pupil who is not particu- 
larly bright and who is not in general a markedly successful 
learner. 

As far as degree of mental ability in the normal pupil is con- 
cerned therefore, it is important to distinguish between relative 
brightness which, other things being equal, may contribute to 
rate of learning, and special gifts which may or may not so con- 
tribute but which are infinitely more valuable to society than 
mere brilliancy in learning. In the end, the surest test of the 
presence of either type of quality in the pupil is the result of 
careful and patient observation in the schoolroom. Special psy- 
chological test results may well attract our attention to a par- 
ticular pupil as being unusually bright or specially gifted, but 
we feel much more certain when we behold his behavior corrob- 
orating the tests. 

We have devoted an amount of space to the consideration of 
the mental components of pupil ability quite out of proportion 
to their relative importance, largely because it is this field in 
which administrative technique is most likely to go astray. Of 
all the elements of ability, mentality is least subject to modifica- 
tion. Whatever may be the pupil’s mentality, provided he is 
normal, degree of mentality or special gift is much less impor- 
tant than the use which he makes of his endowment. Other ele- 
ments of ability are largely matters of adjustment, arising out 


562 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


of either the normal learning of the classroom or out of correc- 
tive or remedial treatment. 


ADJUSTMENT 


Even the very bright pupil must learn. People never inherit 
education. An individual of large native gifts who remains un- 
adjusted to the world in which he must pass his life is even more 
dangerous to society than the dull person who is similarly un- 
educated, and the former is on the whole more likely to become 
an unhappy person. The learning of a naturally bright pupil 
may take place more rapidly than that of the dull pupil, but in 
the end adjustment in itself is as valuable in the one as in the 
other, both to society and to the individual concerned. The dif- 
ference in value to society consists in what the bright pupil or 
the pupil with a special gift does contribute over and above the 
requirements of general education—not what he might contrib- 
ute but what he does contribute. Confusion of ability with ad- 
justment not infrequently leads the teacher and the school to 
adopt an attitude in which ability is rewarded rather than the 
learning which ability should make possible. Not unnaturally as 
a consequence, the pupil of parts comes to look upon himself as 
superman and to delude himself into the belief that his fancied 
superior talent is in itself the equivalent of production. One of 
the most pitiful tragedies the schoolmaster has to contemplate 
is the college boy or girl whom doting parents and teachers and 
adoring schoolmates have persuaded that he or she is a “genius,” 

The graded-school stereotype in pedagogical thinking lends 
itself with singular facility to what may be called the “ability 
fallacy.” The curriculum is apportioned to the successive grades 
and similar subdivisions of the school career. In itself, this is a 
convenient and suitable administrative arrangement, and work- 
able if it is operated by a teacher possessed of school sense who 
is unwilling to commit his thinking rights to people whose prac- 
tical knowledge of school affairs is a vague recollection left over 
from their own school days. But now comes the rage for testing 





PUPIL ADMINISTRATION 563 


mental ability and determining mental age, again in its own 
place and properly used an invaluable addition to the teacher’s 
cabinet of professional tools. The fatal thing about the whole 
arrangement is that grade levels can so easily be transmuted in- 
to chronological age, and this in turn compared with mental age. 
What more natural than to fit mental age to the normal age- 
grade level? If the seventh-grade chronological age is normally 
twelve and John has a mental age of twelve, obviously the sen- 
sible thing to do with all convenient speed is to shift John to the 
seventh grade, even though his chronological age is but ten and 
he is in the fifth grade. And the results seem to justify the pro- 
cedure; John does well in the seventh grade and very possibly 
he has taken on a new interest in school. If ability and perform- 
ance are the only terms in our administrative thinking, all con- 
ditions are satisfied. Unhappily, however, the boy has either lost 
all that he should have learned in Grades V and VI, or else, what 
is more likely, he has only half-learned in the rapid process of 
translating him from the fifth grade to the seventh. Mastery of 
the true learning products is a slow process of growth, not the 
factory process which the administrative procedure described 
really implies. 

_ It is true that the situation in which we found John required 
attention. Critical observation of the case no doubt revealed the 
true learning situation and the findings thereof were doubtless 
verified by the results of the intelligence test. The appropriate 
administrative procedure, however, was quite different, and to 
this point we shall return in the next chapter. Meantime, suffice 
it to remind the reader that the pupil must acquire the learnings 
implied by the fifth and sixth grades if we would avoid malad- 
justment later on. Careful probing of problem cases which are 
primarily learning rather than conduct cases usually discloses 
inabilities which are due to non-mastery of essential learning 
products. May we illustrate. 

Here is the case of a boy at senior high school level. He isa 
problem in mathematics and of course in all subjects in which 


564 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


mathematics is an essential instrument of thought. He has an 
I.Q. in the go’s. The school history shows that he has always 
been “slow in mathematics,” and the school officers are inclined 
to think that he is “dull normal.” The boy’s own testimony re- 
veals the fact that his parents complacently accepted him as “no 
good in arithmetic,” and he has come to believe this and more of 
himself. Three hours of probing discloses to the investigator the 
following story: In identification of mathematical situations as 
exhibited in typical problems, he is better than the average. He 
can talk intelligently and accurately about the mathematics of 
certain aspects of banking in which he happens to be interested, 
but he becomes hopelessly muddled in any kind of process work. 
Given a column of figures to foot, he is abnormally slow and in- 
accurate. So the investigator works back until he finds that the 
pupil has no automatic control of the primary combinations. In- 
stead, he has devised a system of counting, right enough in itself, 
but one which cannot be used with the degree of facility which 
accuracy and clear-headedness in the processes require. Handi- 
capped in this fashion, he is of course inhibited in making adap- 
tations to the whole series of number relations of which later 
mathematics is largely the science. Inability is not inherent but 
acquired; not a matter of mentality but of adjustment. 

Sectioning classes-——The question of sectioning classes ac- 
cording to ability, in the struggle for the advantage of homoge- 
neous groups, has doubtless already arisen in the reader’s mind. 
The response in general is, “Certainly classes should be sec- 
tioned according to ability of students, provided we know what 
abilities we are sectioning for.” 

Classes may be sectioned on the disclosures of general intel- — 
ligence tests. The result will be approximately homogeneous sec- 
tions of a certain sort. So long as we have in mind performance, 
and especially lesson performance, critical observation justifies 
our sectioning again and again. If we spur each of the several 
sections up to its maximum performance, we find that relative 
performance the more justifies the sectioning. But now let us 





PUPIL ADMINISTRATION 565 


turn from the performance standard to some convenient learn- 
ing or adjustment standard, such as the rate at which individuals 
master successive units of learning or make successive adapta- 
tions. The result is materially different. Specific factors in abil- 
ity have now a better chance to operate, especially those which 
arise out of experiential background and volitional develop- 
ment. The pupil who has developed a sort of complex school 
brightness, which stands him well in hand on all sorts of per- 
formance, is now obliged to work over and over until he has a 
tested learning product. In carrying out an experiment in the 
laboratory based on this issue, Beauchamp found that sectioning 
his groups on their general-intelligence test scores would have 
thrown 46 per cent into the wrong section if only two sections 
had been made.* 

In passing, we should comment upon a marked emotional 
disturbance and inability which tends to be set up by the prac- 
tice of sectioning on the basis of general-intelligence tests. Gen- 
eral intelligence implies in the minds of the pupils inherent men- 
tal ability. Now, when we raise questions touching inherent abil- 
ity, we attack the very citadel of personality. We tend to con- 
vince the high ratings that they are of better clay and thus set 
up a more or less fatal false attitude toward learning, and, what 
is perhaps worse, we induce the low ratings complacently to ac- 
cept a fatalistic sense of inferiority. One pupil known to the au- 
thor, a student of quite unusual special talent, whose college 
Freshman intelligence rating placed him in the second section of 
his class, for a long time accepted himself as “second class” and 
adjusted his life accordingly. Another, a junior high school 
problem case of the experiential type who had repeatedly been 
tested for intelligence, came to the problem-case investigator in 
a state of extreme worry because he feared that “something was 
wrong with his brain.” 

A more exact and reasonable basis for sectioning is found in 
specific abilities of the experiential type—more exact because 


1W. L. Beauchamp, Studies in Secondary Education, II, 24-26. 


566 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


we thereby relate ability to the specific adjustment sought and 
more reasonable because we make clear to the pupil that his in- 
ability is remediable and that he need not classify himself as in- 
herently inferior or defective. We may, for instance, section 
classes according to acquired ability in English usage. To do so 
is simply to inventory the learning products acquired and to 
adopt a convenient and rational method of making good the de- 
ficiencies which are bound to exist. Still better, it is to convince 
the pupil of the nature of the learning process. Our highest sec- 
tion will probably be released altogether. Again, we may deter- 
mine from experience the natural rate of learning in a foreign 
language and section classes accordingly, leaving the sectioning 
flexible enough to permit resectioning in case individuals correct 
defective learning methods and improve in rate of learning. In 
this case, we do not fail to make clear to pupils that a slow learn- 
er is not a defective learner, and that there are sometimes ad- 
vantages in being a slow learner. In a science, mathematics, or 
history class we can explore the apperceptive mass specific to the 
course contemplated and section accordingly. In such cases, we 
shall find frequent occasion to introduce an elementary course 
for one or more sections. In practical-arts courses, sectioning is 
ordinarily unnecessary, for class work is naturally on an indi- 
vidual basis. 

Inability traceable to psycho-physical, physical, emotional, 
or volitional sources usually appears also as inability of the ex- 
periential type for the reason that inability which is making 
learning difficult now has made it difficult in the past, and on 
that ground implies a slow section for the pupil, coupled with 
remedial attention. Apart from associated experiential defects, 
none of the inabilities of these types is ground for sectioning. 
Indeed, volitional retardation and sometimes emotional disturb- 
ance are sometimes grounds for placing the pupil in a fast sec- 
tion. In our laboratory-school practice, more than one case of 
the volitional type at high-school level has been noted in which 


————————————— See 





PUPIL ADMINISTRATION 567 


distinct remedial effects followed from giving the pupil a heavy 
load—five subjects instead of four. 

Maturity and adjustment —The pupil who is a rapid learn- 
er, be the cause what it may, is undoubtedly harmed if he is in- 
hibited from learning up to what is his normal rate. The infer- 
ence, as we have seen, is apt to be that he should move through 
the graded system at a more rapid rate. In certain cases this 
may be the correct inference, while in others it is a false infer- 
ence. “Learning,” as the term is here used, means intellectual 
adjustment, but there are clearly other forms of adjustment. 
One of the most important is adjustment to the usages of so- 
ciety. Young people sometimes exhibit more rapid intellectual 
than social development. That is what we mean when we speak 
of a pupil as being bright, a rapid learner, possessed of notably 
advanced intellectual growth, but somewhat of a baby still. We 
are apt to note that he associates with younger children, or per- 
haps withdraws from any association at all. At home he is still 
“mother’s boy.”” Sometimes a corollary is slow physical devel- 
opment; or it may be that his social maturing is normal for his 
age and that he is intellectually precocious. In either event, the 
sound procedure appears to be, not advancement to the standing 
of his intellectual peers among the older pupils, but an expanded 
curriculum on the principles explained in the next chapter and 
continued association with children of his own social age. 
Growth in the fundamental social adjustments arises out of con- 
tacts with contemporaries and not out of classroom study. 

On the other hand, certain individuals exhibit accelerated 
social, and, it may be, a correlated physical development. In 
such cases, movement upward to levels in which the pupil finds 
his social contemporaries is of course indicated. These socially 
precocious children impose a great deal of concern upon the ad- 
ministrative technician, to the end that volitional and intellec- 
tual growth shall keep pace with social development. Forcing is 
not justified, but a great deal of hard work on the pupils’ part is 


568 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


justified. Fortunately, such pupils can usually bear a lot of hard 
work. 

The same principle appears, with added force, in the case of 
the pupil who becomes intellectually retarded to the extent that 
his classroom work has to be carried out in company with much 
younger children. The consequences in the developing person- 
ality are unhappy indeed. The moment it becomes clear that a 
pupil is likely to be outstripped in the learning process by his 
contemporaries, intensive pupil study and intensive corrective 
or remedial work are called for. Thus it becomes evident that 
adjustment rather than ability is the sound basis of sectioning, 
and the case history rather than the intelligence test its most re- 
liable instrument. 

PERFORMANCE 

As ability is apt to be confounded with adjustment in the be- 
ginning, so is performance in the end result. Perhaps the clear- 
est illustration of what is meant is to be found in the primary 
school in early handwriting. 

At some time during the first two years of school life we are 
likely to find some children whose handwriting is already beau- 
tiful in its legibility, regularity, and spacing. Measured by any 
known standard, we should say that the child needed only to ac- 
quire a good rate in order to achieve near-perfection. And yet 
the child does not write; he draws. So far from the handwriting 
adaptation having formed, it cannot be said that he even writes 
at all. The teacher has ignored one of the fundamental laws of 
learning in her quest of a performance result. The child in the 
course of time forms the adaptation, that is, he learns an ari 
which has the essential characteristics of handwriting, but how 
deplorably he has deteriorated! Not at all; his crude third-year 
writing is after all writing, while his beautiful result at the end of 
the second year was something else entirely. At one period, he ~ 
showed admirable performance but no adjustment; at the other 
he shows adjustment but poor performance. In the second 





PUPIL ADMINISTRATION 569 


instance, he has learned handwriting; in the first, he had learned 
something else. Subsequently there can be built on his third- 
year handwriting adaptation the penmanship skills. 
Mathematics is prolific of instances of confusion between 
performance and adjustment. Adaptations in elementary math- 
ematics appear to be of two kinds: in one, we have the recogni- 
tion of mathematical situations, what is commonly called “appli- 
cation”—ability to see in a problem what processes are called 
for; in the other, the manipulation of the processes themselves. 
Perhaps no subject in the curriculum exhibits more evident loss 
of what appeared to be learning. Students in the science and 
practical-arts courses, particularly in the senior high school and 
college, exhibit an ignorance of the simplest of mathematical 
principles which is astonishing. Now, the classroom study of 
mathematics is singularly apt to be performance learning rather 
than adaptation, and this may remain as true of teaching which 
follows the unit and supervised-study technique as of that which 
uses the daily-lesson procedure. Exercises and problems are as- 
signed. In the mastery technique, pupils are kept at work on 
such until they can perform the operations; in lesson-learning, 
of course, they simply perform the exercises and are graded on 
performance. In neither case is the true unit of learning identi- 
fied and the class kept at work on assimilative material until 
the adaptation takes place. Learning to manipulate linear equa- 
tions, for instance, is a very different thing from practicing with 
assimilative material in a true study situation until a thorough 
and fundamental conviction of the principle and doctrine of the 
equation has arisen. The latter abides, and once established is 
the base line from which the individual, after years have elapsed, 
thinks back to performance. Performance rapidly fades out, 
and, if no adaptation has been established, it disappears alto- 
gether. The situation is much like that of the first-grade child 
with his handwriting. In the latter case, the pupil has acquired 
a certain performance ability but he has not learned handwrit- 


570 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


ing. In the case of the high-school pupil in algebra, he has 
learned how to manipulate but he has not learned the equation. 

Again, in reading a foreign language, it frequently happens 
that a pupil practices reading, or, it may be, what is usually 
called “translation,” until he has attained a performance ability 
which satisfies the teacher and is apparently the objective sought. 
Nevertheless, his performance learning rapidly evaporates, sim- 
ply because he has not made the language-arts adaptation which 
was the real objective. 

Of course, lesson-learning is the last word in performance 
learning, for in that perverted school attitude the pupil simply 
acquires skill in learning lessons, with little or no learning of 
what the lessons stand for. 

The performance quality of a pupil in any piece of learning, 
but especially in mathematics and in the language-arts and pure- 
practice subjects, is a baffling thing, for it may be based upon 
adjustment and it may not. The curve of performance improve- 
ment is apparently not very different before the adaptation 
takes place from what it is afterward. In reading, for instance, 
the pupil apparently improves in performance, as measured by 
any performance test, from the beginning and continues to do so, 
as long as he practices the art, up to a certain maximum skill; 
and yet there is a point on the curve below which he has not 
learned to read and above which he has learned to read. Thus is 
performance easily mistaken for adjustment. 

Hence, it becomes critically important to devise tests which 
will identify the adaptation in the learning process as reliably as 
possible. Some such tests have been suggested in our chapters on 
operative technique. Nevertheless, it is doubtful if any test can 
be devised which is wholly reliable, apart from confirmatory 
symptomatology, such, for instance, as the eye movement which 
is characteristic of the primary reading adaptation. In adminis- 
trative technique, it is especially important that the teacher shall 
not place too much reliance upon standardized tests which are 


PUPIL ADMINISTRATION 571 


essentially performance tests. They are useful for many pur- 
poses, but a given rating on any scored test whatsoever is decep- 
tive, unless, indeed, the school is more interested in the perform- 
ance of its pupils than in their educational growth. 


BEHAVIOR 

Ordinarily, the content of a performance test paper is more 
important than the score, for after all a performance test is one 
form of behavior and the behavior of an individual reflects his 
adjustment. In this paper, we detect carelessness and low stand- 
ards of achievement; in another, we note slowness which is mere 
sluggishness; in another, we find evidence of lack of sustained 
application. A comprehensive intelligence test of the language 
type discloses not only these and similar defects but defects in 
specific intellectual attainments—weaknesses in language, in 
mathematics, in ideational content, and what not. Thus the spe- 
cific adjustments needed can be identified and made. What is 
true of performance tests is more widely true of the general be- 
havior of pupils. In behavior we can find an inventory of educa- 
tional needs and plan the pupil’s program. So long as we permit 
the pupil by his actions to tell us of his educational needs, we 
need never doubt that we are getting at the fundamentals in his 
real education. 

Ideally, an inventory of behavior is the starting-point of the 
pupil’s educational program, and modified behavior is always 
the final test of adjustment. We have found this principle at 
every stage of our operative technique. The functional test of 
learning in English writing is the character of the pupil’s papers 
whenever he has occasion to write. In mathematics, it is com- 
petent application to science; in science, ready use of science 
principles in practical arts and elsewhere; in literature, his 
choice of free reading; in conduct, the character of his daily in- 
tercourse in school and out of school. 

Hence the ultimate reliance of administrative technique is 


572 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


the pupil record, in which is accumulated all the evidence avail- 
able touching his behavior in school and out. As a matter of 
fact, teachers customarily collect such evidence, but they do not 
always verify and they seldom record. Consider the recess and 
after-school informal conferences as one teacher meets another 
in the corridor, restroom, or elsewhere. How we do talk over the 
pupils! “Joseph Blank did such an interesting thing today. 
Now, it seems to me that shows .”? “That child is having 
an extremely difficult time at home. The family is much broken 
up but is showing wonderful capacity to help meet the 
situation.” ‘John Doe did a.curious thing in chemistry today.” 
And so it goes. It is distressing to reflect how much of the best 
kind of pedagogical evidence is lost through failure to record 
and preserve such observations. Of course, teachers should train 
themselves to observe critically, to verify chance bits of infor- 
mation, to distinguish between the significant and the trivial. In 
a word, observation has to be raised above the gossip level to be 
worth while. But the value of pedagogical observation having 
once been recognized, teachers trained to observe with purpose, 
and the custom established of recording observations and drop- 
ping them into the pupil’s case folder, the school rapidly accu- 
mulates a body of material which is at once the best critique and 
verification of mastery tests and the source of accurate judg- 
ment touching the guidance and redirection of the pupil’s school 
career. We speak here of the general case folder. Each depart- 
ment has its particular behavior record, such, for instance, as 
the free reading cards employed in estimating the pupil’s actual 
progress in the cultivation of taste for good reading. 

Nor is the pupil’s general case folder to be closed and com- 
mitted to the archives of the school when the pupil graduates. In 
truth, the record of the school’s total influence upon the latter 
begins to be made up only after graduation. Hence, pupil follow- 
up. The ideal school follows its graduates not casually but sys- 
tematically. Evidence gleaned from the follow-up comes too late 











PUPIL ADMINISTRATION 573 


to be applied to the school career of the pupil studied, but it 
does not come too late to form the basis of amended school prac- 
tice and policy. 

If the individual case folder properly filled is the source of 
the final judgments of administrative technique, the staff confer- 
ence described in chapter xxi is the school’s appropriate admin- 
istrative organization for systematic pupil study and for the col- 
lection and application of judgments concerning pupil progress. 


CHAPTER XXX 
CONTROL OF PUPIL PROGRESS 


cussed the principles according to which pupils must move 

forward in the school career.. We have set forth the admin- 
istrative stereotypes which have arisen out of the historical evo- 
lution of the fundamental schools and have shown how for the 
most part they do not furnish an adequate basis for the control 
and direction of sound educational growth. We have considered 
the educational implications of such administrative procedures 
as evaluations of progress in terms of lessons learned and of edu- 
cational determinism arising from wrong interpretations of the 
facts of individual differences. We have traced from chapter 
to chapter of Part III the administrative implications of mas- 
tery of the units of learning. It remains to bring all the forego- 
ing together in a system of administrative technique calculated 
to appraise correctly and control and guide the process of ad- 
justment as it must be furthered in the school. 


|: nearly every chapter in Parts I, II, and III we have dis- 


UNIT ORGANIZATION 

From the time at which the child enters the period of study 
which we call the “secondary school” to the end of that period 
and thus to the end of the period of general education, his prog- 
ress consists in making certain adjustments to the world in 
which he finds himself, in learning how to make such adjust- 
ments—which we call “learning how to study”—and in acquir- 
ing the intellectual tools with the aid of which other adjustments 
can indefinitely be made. From step to step, such adjustment is 
made up of adaptations which we have called “unit learning 
products” and of other accessory learning products which we 
have called “skills” and which are apparently not in the nature 


574 





CONTROL OF PUPIL PROGRESS 575 


of adaptations. What are the fields of learning through the mas- 
tery of which adjustment to environment takes place, it is the 
province of the curriculum-maker to say. Whatever the fields 
may be, each is made up of essential unit learnings or adapta- 
tions which carry out the process of adjustment and which it is 
the province of scientific teaching to identify. Each such list is 
an objective set of principles to be discovered and verified by 
severe analysis of the learning process and not a mere program 
of studies policy which is preferred by the school administra- 
tion at a given time. 

The mastery of each such unit is the point of departure in 
the administrative control of pupil progress. The units differ in 
extent, and they differ in their nature as we pass from type to 
type of teaching. In some subjects, of which the sciences are the 
best example, there will be many units in each list. In others, no- 
tably the language arts, there will commonly be but one funda- 
mental unit in the list, with perhaps several accessory skills. 

Each such list of units, whether one or many, of necessity 
constitutes a course, but a given course has no necessary relation 
to a school year or part of year or other period of time-to-be- 
spent. The time required may be less for some sections and in 
some years and more for other sections and in other years. The 
time required for some courses is in its nature less than that re- 
quired for others. The same subject, as for instance biology, 
may require different types of courses, corresponding to differ- 
ent types of adjustment, at different levels in the school. We 
have not the space to study the nature of different courses by 
enumerating all which may probably be given in the secondary 
period; a few illustrations must suffice. 

If we reduce the number of units in arithmetic to the abso- 
lute minimum requisite for the adjustments required by general 
education, we shall find that not one year but several are re- 
quired for the completion of the course. But some sections will 
complete the course in full earlier than others. It is absurd to 
speak of ‘fifth-grade arithmetic,” for, if the course is at all well 


576 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


administered, the same units will not appear in the fifth grade 
for any two sections, or for any two years for the corresponding 
sections, in the same school. There are not three courses in 
arithmetic, much less six or eight, corresponding to the num- 
bered years of school life in which arithmetic is found, but a 
single course. The pupil is not “promoted in arithmetic” from 
grade to grade; rather, when he exhibits mastery of a unit, he 
undertakes the next unit. 

In the case of English grammar, on the other hand, mastery 
of the essential learnings can ordinarily be achieved in less than 
a year—in some sections in considerably less. When the course 
is completed, it is dropped whether that goal be reached in June 
or in the previous February. Nor does this or any other course 
necessarily begin in September or in February; it begins in prin- 
ciple whenever there is a section ready for it. Nor is there any 
special sacred bond which attaches grammar to the fifth grade 
or the eighth or the tenth. It is offered whenever there is a sec- 
tion or several sections of pupils who have reached the point in 
their language development at which they have come to need 
and can utilize the particular type of adjustment which gram- 
mar affords. 

The same general reasoning applies to other subjects in the 
science type. A qualification is, however, to be noted. In the 
physical and biological sciences, and to some extent in others, 
there are two different kinds of adjustment required by general 
education without going over into the field of specialized train- 
ing. These are: (1) the use of the science for generating intelli- 
gent attitude which works out into intelligent behavior, and (2) 
the use of the science as a systematic method of thinking. We 
have dealt with the distinctions in our chapters on operative 
technique. We reiterate the principle here as a reminder in its 
administrative implications. The distinction is most clearly to 
be seen in the physical and biological sciences where it has been 
widely worked out in schools in terms of ‘“‘general science” and 
“advanced courses.” In the general-science course we utilize 


SE 





CONTROL OF PUPIL PROGRESS 577 


units which are primarily calculated to put the pupil in an intel- 
ligent attitude toward those aspects of the environment with 
which the sciences deal. For instance, we acquaint him with the 
principles which underlie the more obvious phenomena of me- 
chanics, sound, electricity, combustion, decay, and those which 
are manifested by living organisms. In the advanced courses, 
we introduce him to physics, chemistry, and biology as organ- 
ized sciences, which are essentially specialized systems of think- 
ing. At one level, the pupil is being put in an intelligent attitude 
toward the world “‘as is”; at the other, he is being put in pos- 
session of adjustments which are calculated to enable him to in- 
terpret the world as it may in his time come to be, or at least to 
enable him to adopt something more than a passive attitude to- 
ward the explorations of specialists. These two different levels, 
which may correspond to the maturity levels reached during the 
junior high school and junior college, respectively, imply differ- 
ent kinds of courses and different kinds of adjustment. True, 
the intellectual material used belongs to the same field of knowl- 
edge at both levels; but pedagogically the courses are for the 
most part as different as if one were physics and the other math- 
ematics. They are in sequence only to the extent that the lower- 
level course is an essential part of the apperceptive mass re- 
quired by the upper-level course. 

In the appreciation type, a succession of courses is not of the 
upper- and lower-level type nor is the apperceptive sequence 
so vital. We have already seen the administrative relation of 
courses in that type in our chapter on the teaching of literature 
(see chapter xx). 

In language arts, French for instance, we have to do with 
courses which, although they belong to the same general field of 
knowledge, are pedagogically so unlike that they belong to en- 
tirely different types of teaching. The first course is of necessity 
always a course the objective of which is the reading adaptation. 
The course has no relation to school years. As in the case of 
arithmetic, some sections may reach the objective soon and 


578 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


others late. It is pedagogically meaningless to speak of French 
I as a course which falls in the first school year of a sequence of 
years. French I, defined as the course, longer or shorter, in 
which the pupil reaches a given learning objective, has definite 
pedagogical meaning. A course in French grammar has all the 
administrative characteristics of the course in English grammar. 
It is probably placed later in the pupil’s school career, not be- 
cause there is any special appropriateness in assigning it to the 
high school, but because in the circumstances of learning the pu- 
pil ordinarily has no need for it until he has reached the higher 


level. : 
THE SCIENCE-TYPE SEQUENCE 











Cone === Coune 1 F=f Course NT 


FIG. 12 


Sequence of courses.—The notion that knowledge can be 
translated into education and the corresponding notion that the 
school career of the pupil is essentially a matter of ground to be 
covered have tended to assign a peculiar and undiscriminating 
sanctity to sequence in courses. Conversely, the widespread 
confounding of adjustment with ability has tended to set up an 
equally undiscriminating laxity in the opposite direction. In 
truth, severe adherence to sequence is essential in some types 
and not in others. Figures 12-17 perhaps give us a basis for 
a clear understanding of the principles which seem to be in con-’ 
trol. The importance of sequence is indicated by the number of 
lines connecting the figures which stand for units or courses. 
Three lines indicate that a sequential relation between courses 
in the same general subject is imperative. A single line indicates 
that it is desirable but not imperative. No line at all indicates 
that a strict sequential relation is of small importance. 


CONTROL OF PUPIL PROGRESS 579 


In science-type subjects, the nature of the learning is ordi- 
narily in strict apperceptive sequence. The ideas derived from 
learning how to manipulate the process in addition, for instance, 
are essential to learning how to manipulate the process in multi- 
plication. This is an illustration of unit sequence. Similarly, 
one would scarcely attempt to teach a course in algebra prior to 
a course in arithmetic. If we offer both general science and 
physics or chemistry, neither of the latter would be placed be- 
fore the first course named. If we offer both “The Survey of 
Civilization” and “Modern History,” we should expect the pupil 
to acquire the former of the two first. The unit sequence in 
other courses of the science type is less imperative than it is in 


THE PRACTICAL-ARTS SEQUENCE 





FIG. 13 


mathematics, but still there is, in the nature of things, some se- 
quence which will make learning most economical. In both unit 
sequence and course sequence, therefore, the pupil must follow 
the line. Otherwise, orderly accumulation of ideas will be pre- 
vented and mastery of later units will be rendered difficult if not 
impossible. 

In the practical-arts subjects, units are sometimes in neces: 
sary sequence but ordinarily not. The same principle is in gen- 
eral true of the practical-arts courses in household arts, and in 
some cases there is no sequence at all. It is a matter of indiffer- 
ence, for instance, whether cooking be taught first or sewing, at 
least as far as apperceptive relations are concerned. 

In the appreciation type, as exemplified by literature, there 
is no necessary sequence whatsoever, except that general apper- 
ceptive mass established in an abundance of free reading is of 


580 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


course essential to all courses. There may, of course, be advan- 
tages in a sequential arrangement of courses, but there is no 
such essential order as we find in the science type. General ex- 
periential maturity may make it desirable to postpone the essay 
until late in the pupil’s career, and we think there are distinct 
educational rather than pedagogical advantages in introducing 
the drama at an early stage; but there is nothing in the drama 
which is prerequisite to the appreciation of the novel and noth- 
ing in epic or lyric poetry which is indispensable to a proper 
reading of the essay. On the other hand, there is nothing in the 
nature of ability in the pupil which makes it desirable that he 


THE APPRECIATION-TYPE SEQUENCE 


General f é ; 


FIG. 14 


should hurry over the drama and skip the novel in order to un- 
dertake the poetry courses. Whatever the course in the novel 
may have to contribute, its values cannot be acquired otherwise 
than by taking the course. It is, however, true that a given pupil 
may well have obtained in cultural growth, at home or elsewhere, 
the full equivalent of what the novel course or any other may 
have to offer, and in that case he omits the course. | 
When we turn to the language arts, quite a different situa- 
tion arises. Here, ability becomes much more an important con- 
sideration and sequence in adjustment within the course less im- 
portant. In the diagram (Fig. 15), the line which intersects the 
two horizontals represents the learning curve. Now learning 
here consists in acquiring a special ability. It is true that at 
some point the pupil attains the adaptation, that is, he has 
learned to read or to write, but meantime he does not need to 
pass through successive units of learning in detail as he must in 
science-type learning. If we think of the crosses on the learning 


CONTROL OF PUPIL PROGRESS 581 


curve in the diagram as standing for graded exercise material, it 
is not essential that a given pupil shall cover all the bits of exer- 
cise material in sequence. A rapid learner, in French for in- 
stance, may proceed continuously up to position (1) and then 
skip to position (2), as far as the exercise material is concerned, 
continue in sequence of material available to position (3), and 
then skip to position (4). Very soon thereafter he will reach the 
adaptation and the objective of this particular course. Sections 
may possibly be organized for practice and the acquisition of 
skill beyond the adaptation. In that case, our bright pupil may 


LANGUAGE-ARTS AND PURE- PRACTICE SUBTYPE A 


is) <— The skills level 





Adaptation level 


(3) 


No-learning level 
Fic. 15 


again skip to the exercise material represented by position (5). 
The only control necessary is found in the single test: Can the 
pupil manage the more difficult exercise material and learn from 
it without setting up the language-arts inhibition? If he can do 
so, then he demonstrates rapid learning capacity in this field 
which appears as ability to learn at a steeper gradient. 

The course sequence in language arts is quite different from 
that in the types previously discussed. There is but one course 
in a language-arts sequence—unless we introduce other courses 
of the language-arts type specialized in their nature. Other 
courses belonging to the same general subject field, foreign lan- 
guage for instance, are necessarily either science type in their 
nature—the grammar course; or appreciation type—the litera- 


582 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


ture courses. The reading course is necessarily prerequisite to 
either the grammar course or the literature courses, but the 
grammar couse is not necessarily prerequisite to the literature 
courses. 

In pure-practice courses of the second subtype, spelling and 
the number combinations particularly, we find still another prin- 
ciple of sequence. In the diagram devoted to this type (Fig. 17), 
the dots may be taken to represent either blocks of spellings, in- 


Grammar 
Science Type 











Language 
Reading 





Literature 
Appreciation 
Type 


Fic. 16 


dividual words, or individual number combinations. Two princi- 
ples are to be noted: first, there is no sequential relation what- 
ever—the table of 6’s is not an apperceptive prerequisite to the 
table of 7’s; second, a pupil may reach adaptation level, that is, 
acquire a definite spelling sense or automatic control of his com- 
binations, without traversing as exercises in order all the items 
involved or all the blocks of words in a spelling list. In this re- 
spect, the principle at work is much like that which appears in 
language arts. ; 

It may be noted that there is never more than one course in 
the subject field of which we are here speaking. If the subject 
appears in different years, even in years as widely separated as 


CONTROL OF PUPIL PROGRESS 583 


sixth grade and tenth, it is nevertheless the same course with the 
same objective. 

Fast and slow sections and skip sections —With the forego- 
ing principles in mind, the rational theory of sectioning classes 
becomes fairly evident. 

In language arts or pure practice, where the assimilative 
practice is not a process of building up a coherent system of 
ideas but rather the attainment of special ability, adherence to 


PURE-PRACTICE SUBTYPE B 


Adaptation level 


No-learning: level 
FIG. 17 


a sequential order of exercises is meaningless. Referring to the 
language-arts diagram, we may conceive a section to be practic- 
ing with the exercises at level (1), another at level (2), another 
at level (3), and soon. The exercises for each are adapted to its 
own level of acquired special ability. However, a pupil in section 
1 is found to be a rapid learner and he is encouraged to meet 
with both section 1 and section 2 for the time being. He soon 
catches step with section 2 and not inconceivably finds his way 
into section 3. The principle employed is what we refer to above 
under the term “skip section.” In this type of teaching, there is 
of course no occasion for fast and slow sections except that a re- 
liable prognosis test of language-arts ability, if such can be 


584 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


found, will minimize frequent transfers of individual pupils. 
Nevertheless, no such test should be allowed to preclude the 
operation of the skip-section principle if under actual teaching 
experience rapid learners are found (see also chap. xxv, p. 471). 
On the other hand, with both fast and slow sections organized or 
with the skip-section principle at work, or both, the slowest sec- 
tion rapidly becomes automatically the problem-case section. 

The objective in the appreciation type is sense of value. 
There are no graded exercises for practice such as we find in the 
language arts, and hence there is no room for the skip section. 
There is no severely logical sequence of ideas, and hence there 
are not the restrictions which apply to the science type. We find, 
in general, two types of pupils: those who early catch a glimpse 
of the values, and those who are slow and require a great deal of 
teaching and guidance. It is obviously desirable to get these two 
types into separate sections and, it may be, to set up one or more 
intermediate sections. In a coherent and well-administered sys- 
tem, the school should know enough of its pupils to make the 
appropriate sections beforehand. It will be largely a matter of 
experiential background and reading interest at the time the sec- 
tioning is made. If a high school is receiving pupils from schools 
which are not parts of the same administrative system, section- 
ing cannot properly be done until the school has had some expe- 
rience with the new pupils and has come to know something 
about them. The course in general literature and the conference 
groups are the appropriate places for such pupil observation and 
study. 

Sections once formed, however, should not be regarded as 
permanent. Growth takes place, and’a pupil who is today very 
slow in accepting values may, six months hence, exhibit a 
marked awakening. Hence it should be always possible to re- 
section individual pupils. 

Again, as pupils become better py dad it sometimes happens 
that an individual is released from a given course altogether or 
else meets with the class only occasionally. In either case, he 





CONTROL OF PUPIL PROGRESS 585 


is credited with the course. Such cases are prone to appear in 
some communities which have some families in which the pupil 
acquires in the home quite as much in the way of cultural values 
as the school can give. 

Finally, as we have seen, there is no imperative sequence 
from course to course. A section may be scheduled for the novel 
immediately after the course in general literature, if circum- 
stances appear to make it desirable, covering the drama later. 

In the science type, close adherence to unit and course se- 
quence is ordinarily imperative. A pupil who exhibits rapid 
learning tendencies cannot be moved forward on the skip-section 
principle, but it sometimes happens that pre-testing a unit or 
even a course discloses the fact that a given pupil has acquired 
the essential learning product contemplated and can therefore 
either be released and duly credited or in some cases moved for- 
ward into more advanced sections. In the language arts, growing 
ability is the center of consideration; in the science type, adjust- 
ment. Mastery of the essential learning products must be as- 
sured from step to step. 

It is gravely doubtful that there is much real difference in 
rate of learning in the science type, provided corrective teaching 
is diligently followed up and remedial cases duly identified and 
segregated. The bright and alert pupil tends to require more as- 
similative material, and he tends to be more superficial as judged 
by mastery standards. The statement just made should not be 
taken as a declaration of unvarying principle, but the tendency 
is evident enough to serve as a warning in administrative tech- 
nique. The terms “fast” and “slow” sections as applied to the 
science type are then singularly misleading in their connotation. 
Certainly they have nothing in common with the same terms as 
applied in language arts. If we use the terms “normal” and “‘ad- 
vanced” sections, perhaps the meaning will be more exactly 
expressed. Let us see. 

Nothing is more deceptive than the performance of a clever 
pupil in the science type, especially in mathematics. He “catches 


586 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


the idea” readily on presentation, he works through assimilative 
material rapidly and even responds well on the assimilative 
tests; he has all the characteristics of a “rapid learner,” but he is 
prone to fail later in functional situations. His very apparent 
learning evaporates, simply because it was never mastered. On 
the other hand, we sometimes meet a pupil whose whole be- 
havior in the presence of a given unit is evidence of not only 
mastery but of supplementary masteries. He almost invariably 
shows evidence of intellectual interest. His written recitations 
or unit reports are apt to be especially well handled. In such pu- 
pils we have good evidence of adjustment as well as perform- 
ance, despite the fact that they may sometimes appear slow to 
the teacher who is devoted to performance standards and ad- 
miration of cleverness. Sections in which such pupils are gath- 
ered are truly homogeneous, while the mere rapid learner in this 
type may be a veritable problem case if he is thoroughly under- 
stood. 

Expanded curriculum.—tThe ultimate utility of sectioning 
for fast and slow learners or on some other basis than rapidity 
of learning seems to be: first, that pupils can work together bet- 
ter in sections composed of homogeneous abilities; and, second, 
that the fast section will complete the school career in less than 
the standard time allowance. The first objective is undoubtedly 
sound; the second may or may not be. 

In the language-arts and pure-practice types, we have to do 
with subjects which contribute in the main the tools which give 
access to the more fundamental adjustments of education. While 
the objective is an adaptation in the individual in the form of a 
special ability, no element of adjustment to environment is pres- 
ent. Some of the language tools are essential to all forms of in- 
tellectual adjustment, for example reading; others, while they 
are not essential, are of great service, since they give access to 
new fields of experiential material, for instance French or Ger- 
man. Now in the acquisition of these accessory tools of educa- 





CONTROL OF PUPIL PROGRESS 587 


tion, the more rapidly they can be acquired and the more of 
them the pupil learns the better. 

When we turn to the fundamental adjustments, however, 
the principle of maturity enters, as we have seen in the last chap- 
ter. The essence of administration then comes to be: first, to 
see that intellectual maturity keeps pace with mental, physical, 
and social maturity; and, second, to see that precocious intellec- 
tual maturity does not throw the pupil into social situations, 
lack of adjustment to which might prove distinctly harmful. To 
the case of this latter type of pupil, the principle of the expanded 
curriculum is especially applicable. 

Voluntary project —One of the two directions in which this 
principle can be advantageously applied is that of the Voluntary 
project. In all courses, but particularly in those which belong to 
the science type, the appreciation type and the practical-arts 
type, suggestive lists of enterprises which are supplementary to 
the units studied are kept posted. The pupil may select one or 
more of these for his voluntary project or he may select another 
not on the posted lists with the approval of the instructor. Such 
projects are always in the nature of embryo research. They may 
involve extensive reading and report, or the investigation of 
some problem in the library or the laboratory. The pupil is ex- 
pected to work faithfully on his project in his spare time at 
school or at home but not to the detriment of his regular class 
work. Some projects are completed as soon as the regular unit 
being studied by the class is completed; others are continued for 
several months or throughout the school year. Not infrequently 
a piece of work will result at senior high school level which 
would do credit to a college student. Several obvious advantages 
are economically attained. 

First, the pupil of somewhat precocious intellectual matur- 
ity is profitably occupied while his social adjustments are being 
normally made through contact with his contemporaries. 

Second, the rapid learner in the long assimilation period of 
the science type rounds out and expands his experience in the 


588 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


subject being studied while his slower classmates are approach- 
ing full assimilation. Not infrequently we get in this way our 
best evidence of adjustment. The need of sectioning is minim- 
ized, and in the small secondary school this is a decided ad- 
vantage. 

Third, the teacher is thus enabled to identify, study, and 
further the growth of genuine intellectual interest. 

Fourth, the pupil who is genuinely talented, not merely 
bright, is given valuable training and experience in self-depend- 
ent study; he justifies his superiority, not by grades and indexes 
of brightness, but by work and production. 

Additional courses-—The genuinely rapid learner who is 
still socially immature but has developed general intellectual in- 
terest can often be encouraged to expand his curriculum by 
electing additional courses. Additional courses in the languages 
are especially desirable since every new language acquired 
means an additional tool for use in accumulating educational ex- 
perience. Additional courses in the subjects which contribute 
the fundamental adjustments of course expand the pupil’s hori- 
zon and, in pedagogical terms, the apperceptive mass which he 
will bring to the acquisition of later adjustments. 

College courses-—The high-school pupil who is intellectual- 
ly prepared for college at an early age is apt to encounter a more 
or less perilous experience if he passes on to college with stu- 
dents who are several years his senior in chronological age and 
social development. The work of the first two college years is 
ordinarily of secondary type, a period in which most students in 
the traditional four-year college which succeeds the four-year 
high school are arriving at intellectual maturity or self-depend- 
ence. Thrown into such a college life, the young boy is rather 
likely to find himself in courses which he carries much more 
readily than his mates, and in a social medium into which he is 
far from having normally grown. The college makes certain as- 
sumptions of social maturity; it takes for granted that students 
have learned how to manage their own lives with some degree of 





CONTROL OF PUPIL PROGRESS 589 


wisdom and self-restraint, and provides a minimum of ma- 
chinery for individual supervision. The young student is there- 
fore thrown on his own resources at a time when he has not 
learned to take care of himself, and, on account of his intellec- 
tual advancement, he is apt to have more idle moments than the 
older students whom he meets in the classroom. 

Now, while there are of course individual exceptions to the 
rule, it still remains true that the important difference between 
the students of the first two years of the four-year college and 
those of the last two years is intellectual and not social. There 
is apt to be a marked change in social and physical development 
at about seventeen or eighteen years of age in the boy and some- 
what earlier in the girl. Sexual maturity has become well estab- 
lished; the severe storm and stress of adolescence is over. After 
that period, development goes on more slowly, and it is of a dii- 
ferent kind. There is much less social and physical difference 
between the boy of eighteen and his older brother of twenty-one 
or twenty-two than between the former and his younger brother 
of fifteen or sixteen. In brief, the college age of eighteen is prob- 
ably founded on something more basal than the mere circum- 
stance that the traditional high school course is completed at 
about that age in the average pupil. But, except for intellectual 
attainments, eighteen is as much the senior college age as the 
junior college age. If, then, the advanced pupil who is intellec- 
tually ready for college at fifteen or sixteen continues in the local 
high school with junior college courses until he has reached the 
comparative stability of eighteen or thereabout, he may under- 
take senior college or pre-professional work at the latter age 
without serious danger to his social development and with a very 
desirable saving of time. Those universities which are most alert 
to institutional adaptation in effect recognize the principle in 
their provision for advance credit. The local junior college 
movement is an illustration of a tendency to adapt our whole in- 
stitutional organization accordingly. 


590 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


CREDIT 

The recording of credit for courses is in principle simply 
making an entry on the books of attainment gained and verified. 
If a student is found to be proficient in the content of a course 
he should certainly be credited with the course even though he 
never meets with the class. To do so is to record a pedagogical 
fact. To compel the student to cover the course by meeting with 
the class during the period assigned adds nothing to the fact, 
and the credit thus attained becomes the record of a pedagogical 
fiction. 

We have discussed elsewhere at length the vicious fallacy of 
evaluating education in terms of ground covered and time spent. 
The point, of course, has specific application in administrative 
technique. The practice of granting credit for time spent, with a 
passing grade, puts the issue, perhaps insensibly, on a commer- 
cial rather than on an educational basis. The pupil sees the mat- 
ter as a contract in which there is labor performed on his part in 
return for credits awarded on the part of the school. The whole 
procedure is an untruth and the intellectual life of the student 
tends to become an unreality. The latter perhaps never comes 
to realize that his learning is an inward transformation which 
bears only a chance relation to the courses he has pursued or the 
time he has spent. He later speaks of his attainments in terms of 
high-school or college credits and of the degrees he has attained. 
The climax of such educational unreality is reached in the “pro- 
motional credit” for teachers which is so often a feature of city- 
school administration. An administrative technique which pro- 
ceeds on such assumptions may doubtless be justified on factory 
principles but certainly not on educational principles. 

This commercialized-credit principle is particularly inap- 
plicable to voluntary projects. Such enterprises must emphat- 
ically be their own reward or else their value is wholly lost. One 
of their critical values is the evidence they afford of genuine in- 
tellectual interest. Such evidence is wholly destroyed as soon as 
credit is awarded. A certain type of pupil who is easily capable 


CONTROL OF PUPIL PROGRESS 591 


of useful voluntary project work cynically responds when urged 
with the inquiry, “What do I get out of it?” He means, “What 
credits can I thereby add to my accumulated educational sav- 
ings?” When informed of the true principle, he is rather apt to 
respond, ‘‘Not good enough.” Crass commercialism and, what is 
worse, commercialism engendered and fostered by the school! 

The recording of the pupil’s progress to the status of the 
educated man or woman, as far as the administrative technique 
of teaching is concerned, is then in gross a matter, first, of veri- 
fying mastery of the true learning products contemplated by 
each course covered; and, second, of noting credit for the sev- 
eral courses taken in terms, not of time spent, but in terms of the 
adjustments which such courses imply. 

Education is, however, more than a matter of courses cov- 
ered or credited, no matter how pedagogically veracious such 
crediting may be. It implies not only adjustment to the world in 
which the pupil finds himself but adaptability to the changing 
world which he will have to encounter in his day. Much of such 
adaptability is implicit in the adjustments which he has made, 
and especially in the specialized methods of thinking which he 
has acquired or should have acquired at senior high school and 
junior college level. But that is not all; what the individual is 
equipped to do is very different from what he will do. What he 
will do is a matter of volition, and volition seems to grow in 
terms of two superior adjustments to which we have often re- 
ferred as interest and self-dependence. 

Identifying and guiding interest.—In the conduct of the or- 
dinary affairs of life a free man is accustomed to exert himself 
in those directions in which he conceives effort to be worth while. 

If his education has contributed an inclination to attack 
problems by investigation of the premises and the drawing of 
just conclusions, such will be the type of his ordinary procedure 
in life, and the intellectual capital he has acquired in the form 
of right adjustments will make his inclinations possible of frui- 


592 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


tion. If he has acquired no such inclinations, his education will 
differentiate him but little from the uneducated. 

If his education has contributed an inclination to seek the 
satisfaction which not only his intellectual background but per- 
haps even more his appreciative background makes possible, 
then he will employ his leisure time in that kind of recreation 
and replenishment. 

Such willingness is “interest,” in our use of that much- 
abused pedagogical term. Interest within the school is mani- 
fested in the inclination to pursue school enterprises for their 
own sake beyond the requirements of the school or of any par- 
ticular course. f 

The development of right inclinations is evidently, then, a 
critical factor in adaptability, and it is further a factor which is 
rightly a product of education. By systematically and appro- 
priately organizing the educative process with this superior ad- 
justment in mind and by applying a systematic administrative 
technique to identifying and guiding the development of interest, 
we can bring about growth in the individual pupil in very 
much the same fashion as that employed in developing any other 
single adaptation. Three factors seem-to be critically important 
—the subject material and the method of study and teaching, 
the personal effectiveness of the teacher, and the appropriate 
administrative technique. 

Throughout our chapters on control and operative tech- 
nique, we have elaborated the first of the three factors, and we 
shall make no further comment at this point, other than to re- 
mark that mastery is itself the starting-point of genuine interest. 
The pupil is not likely to acquire an interest in matters upon 
which he has nothing more than the vaguest of notions. 

The second factor is of course one to which a volume might 
well be devoted. Most people who are in possession of an edu- 
cation and training adequate for the teacher’s office, who are 
themselves interested both in their subject matter and in educa- 
tion, and who are willing to exert themselves, can teach and in- 


CONTROL OF PUPIL PROGRESS 593 


spire interest. An essential duty of the school administration, in 
its supervisory function, is of course to see that such people are 
provided and developed. 

The primary concern of the third factor, “administrative 
technique,” is noting and studying the evidences of interest. For 
this purpose a regular personnel report from all teachers on 
which, among other things, evidences of interest are recorded is 
appropriate. 

For this purpose, there is necessary, first, assurance on the 
part of the administrative technician that the teachers them- 
selves are perfectly clear as to the meaning of the term; second, 
there is apt to be required a period of teacher-training in which 
a sense of the weight and bearing of evidence is developed. It is 
perhaps worth while to study here different types of personnel 
reports in this connection. 





1. Seems much interested in . Frequently asks questions which 
are very much to the point. Takes an active part in discussion. 

[Such a report is evidence that the pupil in question is inter- 
ested but it is not evidence of interest. He is probably a rapid 
learner, and very likely is such because the course appeals to him. 
Interest is of the passive type, however, which is characteristic of 
a childish stage in volitional development. | 

2. Reads widely in , and frequently comes to me to talk about 
books she has read. I have looked up her free-reading list and find 
that she has read five rather substantial volumes in the last month 
besides several minor but wholesome books, all of them closely re- 
lated to the subject. 

[This report is good evidence of interest because it testifies 
concretely to genuine effort. It is what we expect to find normally 
at fifth- or sixth-grade level or perhaps in the junior high school. 
The child has not yet arrived at the stage at which she can plan 
and carry out a systematic independent enterprise. | 

3. Has done a great deal of reading which is on the whole of a sub- 
stantial character. Every day or two asks if I am going to send 
home a favorable comment. 

[Evidence of a quid pro quo attitude but not of interest.] 





594 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


4. Selected as a voluntary project . He has planned his en- 
terprise, devised working apparatus, and has worked hard at it all 
winter after school. Has submitted a good written report. 

[Perhaps the best evidence of interest and also of dawning 
self-dependence. | 

5. Has made polished translations of many passages from our course 
in Cicero. Has undertaken no specific project and seems to do this 
work for sheer love of the thing. 

[ As good evidence of interest as the preceding but not as good 
evidence of self-dependence. | 

6. Wrote a very interesting account of his summer vacation. 

| Evidence of interest in the vacation but not of interest in the 
subject he is studying. | 





As such evidence is noted by the teacher and recorded, the 
latter has a basis, first, for keeping alive this interest and stimu- 
lating the growth of other interests; and, second, for noting the 
pupils in whose cases interest does not yet appear. The latter 
have perhaps not yet ripened to the point at which it would nor- 
mally appear, or it may very probably be that some of them re- 
quire the kind of intimate personnel work which is calculated to 
develop the spirit of hard work (see chaps. vii and ix). 

As the reports come to the personnel office and are tabulated 
by subjects, courses, and teachers, the office has a concrete basis 
for directing teacher-training, for personnel work with children, 
and for study of the placing of courses in the curriculum. The 
office further gathers, as we shall presently see, evidence for the 
final evaluation of the pupil’s education in one of its three cardi- 
nal aspects. 

In the end, the administrative officer has ground for decid- 
ing whether or not the pupil has taken on the characteristics of 
interest in his whole attitude toward life—whether or not he is 
likely to exhibit in later years an inclination to use his educa- 
tional capital. The decision upon this point must rest upon the 
evidence of sustained and consistent interest. If we look back 
through the personnel reports and find here and there a good 


CONTROL OF PUPIL PROGRESS 595 


piece of evidence but no continuous and consistent story, we 
cannot conclude that the pupil has taken on the characteristic 
which we have in mind. If, on the other hand, we note in early 
reports an occasional bit of evidence and as the story goes on 
a steadily accumulating series, ending in a consistent record of 
the attitude in some form in almost all the school work, then we 
can conclude that the pupil has acquired the characteristic. 
Again, however, we may note that the earlier bits of evidence 
eventually run into a record of quite unusual special interest in 
a particular line of study united with marked attainment and 
special ability. In that case we probably have evidence of spe- 
cial talent. 
SELF-DEPENDENCE 


Adaptability implies mastery of an adequate educational 
capital; it implies inclination to use that capital; and it implies 
the volitional maturity coupled with the right study capacity 
which enables the student to find his problems and work at them 
without, on the one hand, being compelled to do so by external 
pressure or, on the other hand, having the teacher constantly at 
his elbow. In other words, the pupil is educated when he can be 
trusted to find his own way about the world, both as a matter of 
conduct and as a matter of intelligence. 

Training in self-dependence begins, of course, in the kinder- 
garten and in the home. Indeed, we may say with considerable 
assurance that the child’s normal growth is along the line of 
self-dependence. Spoiling in the home or in the school is the 
generation of a pathological condition by persons or agencies 
external to the child himself. The constructive educative influ- 
ence is largely negative, that is to say, preventing the teacher 
and the parents from interfering with normal development. It is 
not wholly negative, for the child will not mature volitionally 
unless he is provided with the necessary medium in the form of 
tasks. 

The teacher interferes when she insists on answering ques- 
tions which the child can answer for himself. The supervised- 


596 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


study periods, for instance, are occasions in which the teacher 
must exercise the most extreme care not to give help when the 
pupil can help himself. One of the chief occasions for the growth 
of the supervised-study movement is found, historically, in the 
fact that the home could not be trusted not to get the pupil’s les- 
sons for him. Again, the school spoils the pupil hopelessly when 
it establishes and tolerates a system which permits and encour- 
ages him to develop the “get-by”’ attitude, or when it allows him 
the luxury of cheap promotions. 

Unhappily, however, the school is not in complete control of 
this supreme element in the pupil’s growth. It can, however, 
often do much to counteract the harmful influence of a negligent 
and incompetent home. Youth is extremely plastic. We have 
too many instances in which the pupil has been educated beyond 
the home in other directions to justify a pessimistic attitude that 
he cannot be so educated in this most important of all directions. 
Systematic, exacting, intelligent work on the part of the school 
is undoubtedly required; but the school can go farther than 
mere efforts to stem the tide, for it can exert a powerful influence 
upon the home itself. In the case of the depraved home, the 
school can establish connections with child-saving agencies and 
if necessary invoke the assistance of the law. The pity is that it 
is seldom possible to apply the law to the depraved home of the 
well-to-do in the same manner as to the slum home! In the case 
of the home which is not depraved or hopelessly incompetent, it 
is seldom impossible for the school to exert influence of one sort 
or another in check of the spoiling process. 

But self-dependence requires not merely normal volitional 
maturity; it requires also mastery of the tools of learning and 
mastery of ideational content as the pupil passes along in his 
career, and it requires the mastery of methods of study. Step by 
step, as these learnings are checked and verified, we can feel in- 
creasing assurance that the pupil is growing toward the desired 
goal. 

As in the case of interest, administrative technique is con- 


CONTROL OF PUPIL PROGRESS 597 


cerned with evidence of growth and such evidence is gathered in 
the form of personnel reports. Here, as in the case of interest 
reports, there must be definite assurance that the teacher under- 
stands exactly what is meant by the term used and understands 
the nature and weight of evidence. Evidence is found in careful 
observation of the pupil’s behavior. 

During the greater part of the later elementary period, and 
perhaps well on into the junior high school, favorable personnel 
reports will be prevailingly negative. That is to say, they will 
exhibit little marked evidence of self-dependence but they will 
not disclose continued dependence. On the other hand, the 
teacher who is thoroughly competent and alert will be constantly 
watchful for signs which indicate developing positive self-de- 
pendence or the contrary. Typical reports which appear at this 
time are the following: 


1. Fifth year. Mary continues to require much help during the super- 
vised study period. I have tried leaving her to her own resources, 
but the result is that she does little or nothing. 

[Evidence of marked retardation, probably requiring study of 
the pupil, especially in her home surroundings, and vigorous spe- 
cial treatment. | 

2. Fourth year: Freda is growing in self-dependence. She has greatly 
improved in punctuality. 

[First part, mere unsupported opinion. Second part, no evi- 
dence of self-dependence, but simply of desirable adjustment to 
school routine and, if generalized, of a useful habit. | 

3. Sixth year: Frederick has carried on a regular business of clearing 
sidewalks in his city block all winter. It seems to have been his 
own idea. In his school work, he learns well and with moderate 
rapidity. He never asks for help except in places where some indi- 
vidual teaching is really necessary. 

[Good evidence of normal development which is beginning to 
show characteristic positive signs. From about the age of ‘ten, 
especially in families in which children are well brought up, these 
positive signs begin to appear. | 


598 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


4. Fifth year: George has not required reteaching at a single step on 
the last three units. 

[Not evidence of self-dependence at all but simply of good 
development in learning capacity and study habits. | 

5. Ninth year: Sarah has worked through all units in cooking with- 
out help from me, and I find that she has assumed responsibility 
for the family breakfast. 

[Excellent evidence of the same type as No. 3, but of more 
mature development. | 

6. Tenth year: In his “Community Civics” class James became in- 
terested in the history of the churches in . So he took this 
as a voluntary project. He has delved into the records of the local 
churches and produced a really creditable report. 

[Evidence of both interest and self-dependence and further 
evidence of incipient creative capacity. The term “genius” should 
probably not be used with quite the abandon which has become 
fashionable in school circles, but behavior such as is here described 
is at least as good evidence of the quality as a mere index of bright- 
ness. | 

7. Twelfth year: William and Frances have both been excused from 
attendance at meetings of the class for the entire semester. They 
have occasionally come to me for advice and they have reacted 
successfully to all unit tests. 

This is the final and probably conclusive evidence. 

When pupils show a record of normal volitional development 
throughout their school careers, marked by appropriate occa- 
sional positive symptoms such as those which appear in Nos. 3 
and 5, and supported by corresponding conduct records, we may 
conclude with some confidence that they have reached volitional 
maturity. When they exhibit evidences of the adjustments pro- 
posed by the curriculum, we may properly infer that they have 
attained their general education. Note, however, that behavior 
such as that revealed in No. 6 is not a part of the evidence of 
general education. It is rather evidence of special talent and as 
such should mark the pupil as a fit subject of special concern and 
wise guidance. 





CONTROL OF PUPIL PROGRESS 599 


THE COURSE REPORT 


During the progress of a given course, the teacher in charge 
has his problem of teaching, and for the effective teacher the 
problem is ever new. He studies the most effective means of pre- 
senting his subject matter to the particular group now before 
him. He locates his problem cases, in consultation with the per- 
sonnel officer he segregates the remedials, he devises and applies 
corrective treatment to the non-remedial. He devises the tests 
best calculated to give him objective evidence of the learning sit- 
uation. He guides study, teaches, and reteaches. In the end, the 
course is completed and the record is made up. Now in a very 
true sense the thesis of this volume centers on that course rec- 
ord. Let us remind ourselves that such is traditionally a record 
of the teacher’s judgment of relative average performance in 
class of the several pupils without regard to pupil study and cor- 
rective teaching. Attention is centered upon performance and 
not upon adjustment. If attention is reversed, the record will 
contain the following elements: 

First, it will enumerate the pupils in whose cases the instruc- 
tor honestly believes that he has evidence of mastery as dis- 
closed by his test sheets. He will realize that later functional 
tests as developed in the school experience may disclose that he 
was mistaken in some cases. He will preserve a mind open to 
such revelations and willing to reconsider his teaching in the 
light thereof. 

Second, the record will show the voluntary projects, by 
whom undertaken and the value which the teacher attaches to 
each as symptomatic of pupil development. 

Third, the record will enumerate the pupils in whose cases 
the learning or adjustment contemplated by the course is incom- 
plete. These incompletes will probably be such, either because 
of interruptions occasioned by absence or because they are still 
corrective cases at the end of the course. The presumption is 
that such pupils will complete the course, probably in a later 
section, possibly at the hands of a private tutor approved by the 


600 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


principal. It is perhaps needless to point out that a grave im- 
propriety is involved in the private tutoring of such pupils for 
pay by the teacher who has conducted the course or by any per- 
son designated by him. Designation of the private tutor by the 
principal removes all color of impropriety. The principal may 
solicit the teacher’s advice, but the teacher will not offer a rec- 
ommendation. Further, the school has a right to require that it 
shall designate the tutors of pupils for whose education it is in 
general responsible. 

Fourth, the record will enumerate the pupils who are prob- 
lems at the end of the course, who have not attained the learning 
products contemplated. The evidence will show whether such 
pupils are to be rated as corrective or remedial. If the weight of 
the evidence shows that a given pupil is still a corrective case, he 
will be rated as “incomplete.” In such cases, the pupil will have 
made consistent progress, but, owing to his handicaps, will not 
have completed within the period for which the record is made. 
The presumption is that the teacher has identified the pupil’s 
learning difficulties and has concluded that they are in process of 
correction. If, on the other hand, the teacher does not know 
what the matter is, then the case is remedial. 

It will be recalled that remedial cases may have been identi- 
fied on positive grounds earlier in the course. For instance, a 
non-learner may have been identified as lacking the primary 
reading or number adaptations or as being so defective in gen- 
eral apperceptive mass that his whole intellectual background 
must be reconstructed. If, however, a problem-case pupil who 
has been thought to be a corrective case comes through to the 
end with no consistent and positive record of learning, he be- 
comes automatically a registered remedial case. 

It will be observed that we have no place in the course re- 
port for failures. If the school conceives the office of teaching 
to be summed up in assigning and hearing lessons and recording 
grades, the term “failure” as applied to pupils is entirely com- 
prehensible. If, on the other hand, the school conceives it to be 


CONTROL OF PUPIL PROGRESS 601 


its task to guide the development of immature youth to the level 
of educational maturity, it is as incongruous to apply the term to 
a pupil who has not learned as it would be for the physician to 
designate the patient who has passed out of life a failure, on the 
ground that he did not get well. There is always a cause for non- 
learning, despite the fact that not all causes are known and iden- 
tifiable. Systematic teaching attempts to find the cause and 
abolish it, or else to find on positive grounds that the cause is in 
fact ineradicable. 
PERSONNEL REPORT 

Not only is the teacher in the conduct of a course concerned 
with the pupils in whom he is endeavoring to develop the new 
attitudes or abilities which the course implies, but the adminis- 
tration through its personnel office is also concerned with a con- 
tinuing census of the personnel problems of the school. It logic- 
ally rests with the personnel officer to decide when a given pupil 
becomes a remedial case in one or more particulars and to be 
registered as such. There is thus required from the teacher: (1) 
periodic personnel reports on different individuals, and (2) a 
final personnel report at the end of the course. 

The periodic report—once a week or for such other interval 
as is found convenient—deals only with pupils who are exhibit- 
ing markedly successful learning and with those who are defi- 
nitely problem cases of one type or the other. It also records 
data which are significant as evidence of developing right atti- 
tude toward conduct or the opposite. On the whole, the best 
form for periodic personnel reports is a blank card of convenient 
size upon which the teacher records the evidence as he sees it. 
If a printed form on which the teacher checks certain spaces is 
used, the latter tends to adopt a mere clerical attitude. The look 
of things is simply one more bureaucratic report. On the other 
hand, the blank card tends to stimulate the teacher’s actual ob- 
servation and study of pupils. When a printed form is rated, 
that is the end of the matter. If, on the other hand, a blank card 


602 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


comes to the personnel office nearly in its virgin whiteness, or if 
the record made thereon is without evidence, in either case there 
is a basis for conference between the personnel office and the 
teacher concerned and for a piece of constructive training of the 
latter. The rated printed form facilitates business and gives the 
appearance of administrative efficiency; but we never know what 
it means in concrete terms. The blank card may indeed remain 
all but blank when the printed form would be completely filled 
out, but at least we have the evidence of the teacher’s vacant 
mind and the basis for training. When the blank card contains 
a clear and definite statement, we get a concrete picture of the 
pupil. Naturally and properly, the card returns will yield almost 
as many different types of content as there are pupils in the 
class, and we cannot completely cover the ground with illustra- 
tive instances. The following will, however, suggest types of 
good and bad reports. 

1. Does not seem to concentrate. 

[A poor report. It records only an impression, vague at that, 
and it proposes no definite treatment. | 

2. Does not concentrate. See three application profiles attached. 
Dawdling the chief difficulty. Have taken steps to develop better 
habits. Some improvement. Will report later. 

[Good in exactly the particulars wherein 1 is weak. We shall 
naturally look for another report later and here it is. | 

3. Previous reports noted dawdling. Have kept at the matter of cor- 
rection. Practically normal. See attached profiles. Rate of learn- 
ing greatly improved. 

[We might have had 4 instead of 2.] 

4. Does not concentrate. See application profiles attached. Is never- 
theless one of the most rapid learners. Is getting into bad habits. 
Recommend transfer to fast section. Or perhaps this: Have suc- 
ceeded in getting him interested in voluntary project. 

5. Is steadily dropping behind class. Works very slowly, but seems 
conscientious. 

[ Vague and meaningless. A better report would be 6. | 
6. Is steadily dropping behind class. Works slowly but conscientious- 


CONTROL OF PUPIL PROGRESS 603 


ly. Suspected reading difficulty. See approximate eye movements. 
Apparently a decipherer. Recommend remedial work. Sensory or- 
gans seem to be O.K. 

7. Ais becoming a conduct problem. He neglects his work and is in- 
clined to rowdyism in the corridors. Met him Saturday with a 
group of hard-looking youngsters on Street. Admits that 
he is out late nights and gets little sleep. Have seen the mother 
who is greatly worried. Recommend action by the personnel office. 

[Good. Concrete, definite evidence, intelligent recommenda- 
tion. | 

8. B has worked consistently on three good voluntary projects since 
the beginning of the year. His regular work is done promptly and 
well. Interest in successive projects has grown out of the preced- 
ing. Has had little help from me and shows marked originality. 
Completed reports are on file. Interest and self-dependence. 

[Good because it is concrete and conclusions are backed by 
evidence. | 





The final personnel report should be the teacher’s judgment 
of pupil personal progress or lack of progress during the contin- 
uation of the course, in brief, a final characterization. The pe- 
riodic report serves as a basis for immediate personnel work by 
the teacher or the office; the final report is for the record and the 
pupil’s case history. 

MARKS AND GRADES 

In chapters iii, iv, and v we considered at length the theory 
of marks and grades awarded for the performance of school 
tasks in their effect upon the pupil, upon his education, and as 
valid means of appraising his progress. We found that the ordi- 
nary scheme of grades ranging from symbols which express ex- 
cellence down through superiority, mediocrity, and the like to 
failure are prone to become stereotyped so that in the end, what- 
ever may have been the original purpose, they become symbols 
for performance of one sort or another and not symbols for learn- 
ing or adjustment. Administrative technique comes to be founded 
upon pure assumption that attainment is in proportion to per- 


604 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


formance, an assumption which is not, as we have seen, war- 
ranted by critical analysis of the situation. In so far as any sys- 
tem of grading is clearly recognized by all concerned as simply 
a system of shorthand for recording the nature of the adjust- 
ment attained or the pupil’s personal qualities, it is pedagogical- 
ly valid, and it makes little fundamental difference what the 
symbols are. Nevertheless, certain practices have an inevitable 
effect upon teacher and pupils alike. Caught in the psychology 
of the situation, both the awarder and the recipient of grades 
are presently behaving in a manner which was not originally 
contemplated. 

The crudest form of stereotype thus generated, leading to 
attitudes the most remote from reality, is found when percentile 
grades are used. A percentile expression has real meaning only 
when it is applied to actual quantity. 

Thus, we speak truth when we say that a pupil has mastered 
the correct spellings of 80 per cent of a given list of words. But 
this is very different from saying that the pupil is 80 per cent a 
good speller. To express a real meaning in the instance last 
named, it would have to mean that he spells correctly on the 
average 80 per cent of the words he uses, and that would be very 
poor spelling indeed. Or it might mean that he spells correctly 
80 per cent of the words which anybody could possibly spell, a 
finding which is obviously beyond the teacher’s capacity to 
make for it would imply a use vocabulary longer than any pupil 
can have. The only tangible and concrete fact we can find is 
that the pupil has learned to spell his use vocabulary. True, dif- 
ferent pupils will be at different points on their way to such mas- 
tery and, if it were worth while, we could compute by a count of 
the average number of words misspelled per one hundred words 
used in written papers. We should find that the result would 
fluctuate within a few points of 100 per cent. A go per cent 
speller on such a counting would be a long way from the 
adaptation. 

Similarly, we can say with entire truth that a given pupil 





CONTROL OF PUPIL PROGRESS 605 


has mastered one-half, or 50 per cent, of the units in a course in 
science and another 75 per cent, but this only means that one 
has half completed the course and the other has three-quarters 
completed. Neither grade has any pedagogical significance as 
part of a record of quality of learning. 

But this exact mathematical use of the percentile term is 
not what the school has in mind. It rather uses percentile grades 
to express symbolically the teacher’s judgment of the pupil’s 
performance when 100 per cent is what the teacher understands 
to be perfect performance. If all kept in mind the principle that 
the grades thus used were mere symbols without any mathemat- 
ical meaning, the practice would be acceptable rating of per- 
formance. But the teacher does not keep the principle in mind. 
He rather grades 70 per cent today and 80 per cent tomorrow 
and expresses the average performance of the two days as 75 
per cent. Seventy-five per cent expresses the average of two 
judgments but it does not express even the teacher’s judgment 
of the value of the total performance of the two days. Even so, 
learning is confounded with lesson performance, and the whole 
unreal situation leads to ridiculous consequences. If multiplica- 
tion is the lesson today and the pupil scores 100 per cent, and 
division is the lesson tomorrow and a score of 50 per cent is at- 
tained, then 75 per cent is taken to express the learning of the 
two days. Somehow perfect performance on multiplication av- 
eraged with a very poor performance on division must have re- 
sulted in poor but acceptable learning on both! In brief, use of 
the percentile grading as a means of evaluating pupil progress 
inevitably leads into a world of unreality, and no wonder the 
schools are condemned for slipshod work! 

The use of serial letters instead of percentile grades is open 
to all the fundamental objections which apply to the latter. If 
C represents mediocre performance, while B and A, D and E, 
represent different levels above and below mediocrity, the fun- 
damental fallacy of confounding learning with performance is 
still present. More than that, since the teacher has to average, 


606 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


he translates literal symbols back into numerical symbols, per- 
forms the necessary operation, and deludes himself into the no- 
tion that the result expresses even his judgment of average per- 
formance. 

Nevertheless, it is perhaps necessary, and it is certainly con- 
venient, to find some shorthand symbol which expresses the 
progress of the pupil’s learning and reveals the major elements 
in his total adjustment to date. Now, as long as any such sym- 
bol is defined as standing for concrete evidence and the evidence 
is present in the case history to back the symbol, we are on a 
concrete footing. Our evidence may be poor and inferences may 
be bad, but we have at least come out of the world of stereotypes 
into the world of reality. We may even use serial letters which 
have an alphabetical order, provided our E stands for unsolved 
problem, our D for mastery, and our C, B, and A for sundry 
qualities over and above mastery, each of them defined and each 
supported by evidence. The use of serial letters will, however, 
probably be a practical mistake for the mere serial order will 
tend to generate the rank-in-class stereotype which very easily 
degenerates into performance evaluation. In our laboratory 
practice we have lately been using M, N, and R to stand for 
“mastery,” ‘sustained interest,” and “self-dependence” respec- 
tively. Thus MN signifies at once a pupil who reveals mastery 
plus interest in the course he is pursuing, MNR stands for mas- 
tery plus interest plus characteristic self-dependence. Other let- 
ters would have done as well, and we might go farther and add 
sundry designations to indicate various other acquired qualities. 
For instance, we might add 1, 2, and 3 to stand for several lev- 
els of skill in courses in which the skill element appears, or we 
might add a performance test score for skill. For example, 
MNRC”* in French I (see chap. xxv) would mean “Reading 
adaptation, plus evidenced interest and self-dependence, plus 
facility in reading as disclosed by a score of 80 on a given test.” 

Such values as are recorded in the books should be entered 
therein by the administrative office upon the evidence submitted 


CONTROL OF PUPIL PROGRESS 607 


by the teacher. The teacher’s mind is thus wholly concentrated 
upon the collection of evidence, and is divorced from the purely 
subjective attitudes which are bound to arise whenever two per- 
sonalities come into close relations. True, such attitudes are 
prone to bias more or less the collecting of evidence itself, but, 
in centering the teacher’s interest and attention upon the evi- 
dence rather than upon the grade, we at least minimize rather 
than exaggerate subjective influence. 

Notice to the pupil and the home.—Nor should the mark of 
which we are now speaking be kept prominent in the pupil’s 
mind or in that of the parent. Working for this kind of a mark 
is perhaps less pernicious than working for a performance grade, 
but none the less, aiming at an abstraction of any sort diverts at- 
tention and ambition away from the true learning product. The 
objection is frequently urged that the pupil and his parent should 
be kept informed of the former’s standing. Quite true; but let 
the information be concrete and real and suggestive of right 
action. Hence, instead of the periodic report card, a notice is 
sent home as occasion requires describing in plain English the 
pupil’s deficiencies or his excellencies and containing suggestions 
as to the action which the home may well take. Thus, pupil and 
parents alike are gradually educated into right and constructive 
attitudes toward the school and the educative process. 


CHAPTER XXXI 
THE PROBLEM PUPIL—CASE WORK 


E have already defined the problem pupil as one who 
WY in fact does not respond normally to the ordinary 
processes of classroom teaching or to the influence of 
the school. We emphasize the fact rather than the appearance 
or normal response. Children and young people are exceedingly 
plastic, and they often exhibit very great capacity for adapting 
themselves to what they know to be the expectations of the 
teacher or parent. Hence, what may appear to be normal re- 
sponse is often mere conformity. Diligent and consistent indi- 
vidual study of all pupils is the only secure foundation for effec- 
tive teaching. 

Periodically the question is raised, “Why spend time and 
energy on the inferior pupil to the neglect of young people of 
parts, who are endowed by nature with the possibility of large 
contributions to the well-being of society?” The query is plaus- 
ible and appealing, but it begs several questions, and, in addi- 
tion, it overlooks some extremely important issues. 

In the first place, we do not know who are the inferior pupils, 
apart from searching study of individual cases. The gross fact 
that a pupil does not do well on routine school performance, un- 
der teaching which may itself be inferior, is no valid evidence of 
natural inferiority in the pupil. We can, to be sure, utilize tests 
which will beforehand with considerable reliability pick out the 
pupils who are not likely to do well on school performance, but 
such test results do not explain the all-important issue why and 
wherein the pupils thus identified are inferior. Conversely, su- 
perior performance under school conditions, like those to which 
we have just referred, is not in itself evidence of superiority. 

In the second place, our knowledge of what constitutes in- 

608 





THE PROBLEM PUPIL 609 


feriority is but meager. Mental subnormality we know, and, 
while it is sometimes not easy in the case of an individual to de- 
cide whether the pupil is normal or feeble-minded, we at least 
know what we are talking about when we deal with the term 
“feeble-mindedness.” The majority of our pupils who exhibit 
inferiority in school performance are normal; their inferiority 
remains to be defined. In many such cases, and perhaps even- 
tually in all of them, we can succeed in putting the finger upon 
the eradicable factor which is causing the inability. In brief, it 
will not do to classify our failures as the identified subnormals 
and “other inferior pupils.” Conversely, genuine superiority can 
be understood only as a matter of a great variety of individual 
traits or special talents, and these can be identified only through 
critical examination in a school situation which is calculated to 
give opportunity for such traits and talents to become manifest. 
Mere brightness or mere rapid learning capacity in itself is no 
evidence of essential superiority. The slow pupil who is pos- 
sessed of vision, a discovered purpose in life, an absorbing inter- 
est, a creative talent, has within himself elements of intrinsic 
value which the bright pupil not so gifted has not. Much as in 
the case of inferiority, the thoughtful teacher is interested in 
pupil superiority only in so far as he can find out wherein super- 
iority consists. 

In the third place, it by no means follows from any facts 
which have as yet been adduced in evidence that schools are to 
any large degree devoting disproportionate time and energy to 
assumed mediocrity and assumed inferiority. The facts are be- 
ing collected, but meantime contemplate the average class pe- 
riod, consider the opportunities accorded the obviously inter- 
ested and responsive, in comparison with the time and attention 
devoted to the slow and unresponsive, and then impartially an- 
swer the question, ‘“What type of pupil gets the most attention?” 

Whatever may be the difficulties in the way of teaching and 
administering the problem pupil, the large fact remains that an 
individual who remains unadjusted to the world in which he 


610 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


finds himself is not only a social burden, a tax upon the energies 
of the adjusted and competent, but he is a hampering obstacle 
to social progress itself. The dependent, delinquent, and defec- 
tive classes are largely made up of unadjusted, maladjusted, and 
perverted individuals. 

Of these three categories of social pathology, other agencies 
than the school have chiefly to do with the defectives. Neverthe- 
less, the school cannot overlook them, first of all, because it is 
in the school more than in any other modern institution that the 
defectives can seasonably be located, studied, and put in the 
way of such adjustment as their condition requires. Adjustment 
may, of course, in the case of the definitely feeble-minded, con- 
sist in commitment to some form of permanent custodial care. 

Extensive study of the delinquent and pre-delinquent, if we 
eliminate those who are actually cases of mental pathology, 
leaves little room for doubt that most such enter upon the delin- 
quent career as problem cases in the school or in the home. 
Whether in the school or in the home, the school can be and 
should be organized to identify such cases in their inception and 
to deal with them in that systematic and positive manner which 
we call “scientific.” Study of pedagogical cases especially makes 
it very evident that many if not most pupils who are eventually 
classed as conduct cases start the career of maladjustment as 
learning cases. Conduct cases in the school are only too apt to 
appear in society as delinquents. The apparently increasing 
drag of the delinquent upon society, especially in the abnormal- 
ly rapid development of modern society, is too obvious to require 
comment. What boots it to identify the superior pupil and bend 
our energies upon educating him, to the neglect of the problem 
cases arising all about us, under the complacent belief that we 
are “training a leader,” if, for every leader we so train, we train 
two others to thwart him and a multitude so essentially unen- 
lightened that he cannot lead them? Especially, if our “bright 
pupil” is himself likely to turn out in the end a superdelinquent? 

Again, the study of dependent case histories, apart from 





THE PROBLEM PUPIL 611 


mental pathology and apart from the pure hazard of life, leaves 
little room for doubt that most of our dependency originates 
in the problem cases of the school and the home. Sheer lack of 
education, plain ignorance, accounts for much, perhaps most. 
Shiftlessness and thriftlessness, which are only other terms for 
volitional retardation, account for the remainder or most of it. 
These in their turn originate in either positive spoiling or plain 
neglect. The fatalistic verdict, “Does not concentrate,” is typ- 
ical of the school’s fatuous neglect of problem cases. Of ‘what 
service is it, either to society or to the individual, to focus our 
energies upon the superior pupil if in so doing we neglect a 
dozen, among whom will be recruited the helpless dependents 
who will tax the energies of our youth of parts in his contribu- 
tions to the numerous public and private charitable enterprises 
which are maintained to provide a living for those who will not 
or cannot support themselves? 

Nor is the social well-being the only objective. The demo- 
cratic Christian state is founded in large measure upon the rec- 
ognition that the human individual has worth and rights in him- 
self. We find this conception embodied in our own national 
enunciation of political philosophy, in its declaration of the in- 
alienable right of the individual to life, liberty, and the pursuit 
of happiness. None of us comes into this world of his own free 
will. Once here, we doubtless grow into a set of inescapable ob- 
ligations which we owe to society, but it is none the less true that 
society through its institutions owes to the individuals thereof 
certain obligations. The two sets of obligations are inextricably 
interwoven. During the period of immaturity the right of the 
individual as against the right of society bulks large. The prob- 
lem pupil did not create his own problem; it came to him in one 
form or another. Hence, whatever may be the compulsion laid 
upon the school by social need to give heed to the solution of its 
pedagogical problems, the pupil has a right to the school’s ulti- 
mate effort simply because he is a child and a pupil. 


612 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


THE CORRECTIVE CASE 


We have elsewhere divided problem cases into two groups, 
the “corrective” and the ‘“‘remedial.” The corrective case has 
been defined to be one which is susceptible of treatment within 
the pedagogical resources of the regular course in which the pu- 
pil is enrolled. Probably most pupils, if studied closely enough, 
are corrective cases to a greater or less extent. Corrective case 
work is essentially the reteaching member of the mastery formu- 
la. Supervised study in the science type is especially, in large 
part, a period for pupil study, identification of the points at 
which corrective teaching is required, and application of the ap- 
propriate procedure. ; 

The number of problem cases which later become remedial 
and require systematic case work will depend very closely upon 
the critical observation of pupils, and upon the ingenuity and 
diligence which are throughout the school brought to bear upon 
the prompt identification of corrective cases and upon their suc- 
cessful adjustment. In all but a small minority of maladjust- 
ments and outright school failures the mischief gets started in 
minor but critical pieces of non-learning or perverse learning or 
in the taking on of perverse attitudes toward learning of one sort 
or another. All of the cases which have hitherto been cited in 
illustration of points made in this volume are instances. Some- 
times, as in the case cited later from Three Problem Children,’ 
an uncorrected first-grade reading difficulty is allowed to drift 
along in the unpardonable incompetency of passive acceptance 
by the teacher and the school until the pupil is hopelessly out 
of step and an initial learning difficulty has become a serious 
personality disorder. In this case, society through one of its 
fundamental institutions, the school, callously consigns the in- 
dividual to a life of wretchedness, from which she is rescued 
only by chance. If the pupil, instead of being a girl of the intro- 
vert type, had been a vigorous extravert boy, society would have 


* Narratives from the case records of a child-guidance clinic; Joint Commit- 
tee on Methods of Preventing Delinquency (New York). 


THE PROBLEM PUPIL 513 


paid the penalty of the school’s incompetency in a youthful gun- 
man or some other kind of criminal. In unpublished case his- 
tories worked out by the author’s students, it is to be noted that 
almost always a marked conduct case starts life as a minor cor- 
rective learning case, usually in the first three or four years of 
school life. There are no doubt myriad forms of corrective cases. 
Learning which has gone awry will turn up in most unexpected 
places. There are, however, certain directions in which it is 
most likely to appear, and these it is perhaps well to note in 
passing. 

By far the most important of these are defects in the read- 
ing adaptation. These have been noted so often in other connec- 
tions that it is perhaps unnecessary to elaborate here. Suffice it 
to point out that, since reading is our principal learning tool, 
such defects become reflected in defective or difficult learning in 
nearly every school subject. 

Associated in our thinking with defects in the primary read- 
ing adaptation are later defects in the requisite reading skills. 
The pupil has not learned to read intensively and consequently 
becomes superficial in all learning which requires close study of 
the conditions of problems, or else he has not acquired normal 
reading rate and as a consequence becomes an abnormally slow 
learner. 

Next in order of importance are defects in the primary num- 
ber adaptations or in the arithmetical learning products of the 
early secondary period. The pupil who has acquired no sense of 
the reality of number but has learned merely to manipulate fig- 
ures eventually turns up complacently with a perfectly absurd 
problem result, in which he sees no incongruity, simply because 
mathematics to him is merely a body of numerical stereotypes. 
Again, in the early process work of arithmetic or algebra, pupils 
will catch curiously perverted methods of work which lead for 
the time to valid results. The teacher whose mind is occupied 
wholly with pupil performance and who takes learning for 
granted accepts the results and passes on. Meantime, the pupil 


614 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


becomes less and less able to think mathematically or to take on 
normal learning in fields in which mathematics is an essential 
method of thinking. 

Associated with the common defects in reading and the ele- 
mentary mathematical processes is another exceedingly common 
handicap, namely, meager apperceptive mass. The pupil in the 
later years of the elementary school begins to have difficulty in 
assimilating new ideas simply because he has not enough intel- 
lectual content to make the process possible. New ideas become 
more and more absolute strangers to him. 

Intimately connected with the common corrective defects in 
learning are the study habits and learning attitudes. Two in- 
stances in this classificatiori stand out in conspicuous promi- 
nence: The first of these is sustained application to which we 
have devoted the whole of chapter ix and which is not only fun- 
damental to successful learning but is also of crucial importance 
in volitional maturing. The second is the lesson-learning atti- 
tude which has to be broken down absolutely if the pupil is ever 
actually to learn (see chap. iv). 

Now we repeat that the foregoing instances are only illus- 
trations of types of necessary corrective work with incipient 
problem cases and perhaps reminders of the chief fields which 
need to be kept constantly in mind. It must be remembered that 
the field of corrective work as a whole is so broad as to defy classi- 
fication. Assurance of successful learning in the pupil depends 
upon the ingenuity and diligence of the teacher in detecting cor- 
rective needs and applying corrective teaching. All of this is 
part of the ordinary routine of teaching; it is, in truth, teaching 
itself, 

Nevertheless, either because of neglect of corrective work 
earlier in the school career, or because of bad method, or be- 
cause of non-pedagogical defects in the learner, certain cases 
are beyond corrective work in the classroom. These are the re- 
medial cases. 


THE PROBLEM PUPIL 615 


THE REMEDIAL CASE 


There should be a degree of formality connected with the 
handling of remedial cases, first, because the teacher is humanly 
prone to treat all obstinate corrective cases as remedial; and, 
second, because successful remedial work requires prolonged in- 
vestigation and treatment. Hence, a given case should be settled 
upon as remedial only by the personnel officer after consultation 
with the teacher or teachers concerned; it should be registered 
as such in a book kept for the purpose; and it should be careful- 
ly written up, from the survey of symptoms to follow up, and the 
record preserved in its appropriate folder. A sample page of an 
appropriate registration book is shown in Table XIX. 


TABLE XIX 


REGISTER OF REMEDIAL CASES 


No. Pupil’s Name Date Birth BScile ey Classification Diagnosis 
ne Peet Doe, John 3/10/23} 4/8/09 8 Learning | Experiential 
Re et Roe, Richard | 3/10/23] 20/9/10 7 Conduct | Emotional 
mets ey} Adams, Mary | 3/10/23] 15/7/o7| ‘11 Learning | Vision 
vis ea Roe, Richard | 10/9/24] 20/9/10 8 Conduct | Emotional 
Assigned to Date of Discharge Results Follow-Up Notation 
Ae ata: Smith 1/2/24 Adjusted 6/6/24 | Confirmed 
Goths 5. Thompson 15/6/24 Improved 10/9/24 | Relapsed 
Cee Dr. Blank 4/12/23 Adjusted 1/6/24 | Confirmed 


Ne Pe Thompson 18/6/25 Adjusted t/to/25 | Confirmed 





The record on the register is made up as the case progresses. 
At the time of identification and assignment, the pupil is given 
a number, his name is entered with the date of registration, the 
date of birth rather than age, years in school rather than grade, 
classification as either learning problem or conduct problem, and 
the name of the teacher or other person in charge of the re- 
medial treatment. The other entries are made as data are as- 
sembled and findings discovered. The diagnosis is entered in 
terms of the classification of abilities found on page 556. This 


616 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


is sufficient for purposes of registration, but the diagnosis proper 
is worked out in detail in the case history. The typical entries 
shown are perhaps self-explanatory. 

When a pupil has arrived at the point at which he is in real- 
ity a remedial case, a very searching systematic investigation is 
called for. Every precaution is taken to avoid guesswork. A 
volume might well be written on the subject; we must be content 
here with a bare outline. Thorough training for remedial case 
work and treatment must lay under contribution the literature 
touching the learning of children in school, and it also involves 
excursions into the fields of medicine and psychiatry and psy- 
chology. Happily, in most remedial cases the maladjustment is 
at bottom very simple. Given reasonable pedagogical sense and 
scholarship and familiarity with the technique of case work, suc- 
cessful practice requires chiefly honest diligence and common 
sense. In a minority of cases, the root of the trouble lies in the 
fields of various specialists. The well-trained remedial case 
worker needs to know enough about these several fields to be 
intelligent as to their problems and procedure, but in no sense a 
specialist. 

CASE INVESTIGATION 


The procedure described in the following pages is used in 
case study. The investigator keeps in mind, throughout, the list 
of abilities to which reference has already been made, namely, 
psycho-physical, physical, experiential, emotional, volitional, 
and mental, until he has worked out his diagnosis. There is 
practical value in the order of consideration as given above. 

The old-time schoolmaster was inclined to rate all his prob- 
lems as volitional, and application of the birch was his compre- 
hensive plan of treatment. His descendant is prone to rate all 
problems as mental. Both are unacceptably crude diagnoses. 
Most remedial cases of long standing have become a tangle of 
primary and secondary and contributory causal factors, but a 
case is rarely found in which the trouble did not originate in 


THE PROBLEM PUPIL 617 


some one cause or set of causes. It is in the highest degree im- 
portant to good administrative technique to identify the origins, 
both because intelligent remedial treatment in the case itself re- 
quires such identification and, even more, because light is thus 
secured which will enable the administrator to take steps calcu- 
lated to minimize the recurrence of similar cases. 

Such identification is a matter, not only of noting the more 
or less obvious causative factors as they now appear, but also of 
eliminating other possible but less obvious factors. Hence, our 
first steps as a matter of routine are to make sure that there is 
present no hampering condition in the psycho-physical organism 
or in the general health of the pupil. It is worse than a waste of 
time to work out various defects in the experiential background 
and leave uncorrected an organic difficulty—defective vision for 
instance—which was very likely the original causation, which 
will in any case prove a hampering obstacle in the treatment and 
a possible occasion of relapse after treatment. On the other 
hand, emotional and volitional factors are on the whole more 
likely to be the effect than the cause of experiential defects. Ac- 
cordingly, the good investigator, as he works through a case, 
does not allow interesting emotional or volitional symptoms to 
take first place in his attention until he is satisfied that one of 
these and not experience was first in the chain of cause and 
effect. 

Logically, mental condition should stand first, and the inves- 
tigator should make sure that he is dealing with a normal and 
sound mind before he raises other questions. Practically, there 
is as yet no means of identifying mental defect with anything 
like the positive assurance which examination of the sensory or- 
gans and general health condition is capable of yielding. To be 
sure, the evidence of definite feeble-mindedness, especially in 
the earlier years of the secondary period, may be clear, and, in 
that event, the diagnosis and plan for treatment are reached 
very promptly. Mere border-line mentality or dulness, however, 
would best be left until the evidence touching other factors is all 


618 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


in. The character of response to treatment itself is often the 
only means of reaching a final conclusion on the question of men- 
tal ability. The appropriate attitude of the case worker, as he 
reaches diagnosis, may well be, ‘This looks like a case of inade- 
quate mentality, but we shall get more light as the treatment 
goes on.” 

Priority of probable causation being then in mind, the inves- 
tigator proceeds to work up the case history in the following 
order keeping extended and careful notes from step to step: 


I. Symptoms 

The point of departure is a careful survey of the present 
situation. Wherein is the pupil found to be a remedial case? 

His chronological age and number of years in school are 
noted. His backwardness in various school subjects is investi- 
gated and accurately set down. The instances of misconduct 
are ascertained and verified. The statements of various teach- 
ers and other persons who have first-hand knowledge of the 
case are sought and recorded. In brief, all possible information 
touching present conditions is hunted down. Two major pre- 
cautions are to be observed. 

1. All statements whatsoever must be verified, either as first- 
hand knowledge on the part of the witness or else followed 
back to the point of corroboration. Too often the whole 
foundation upon which a case has been growing to remedial 
dimensions is found to be based upon little more than gos- 
sip. This is of course especially true of conduct cases, and, 
above all, of alleged sex perversions. 

2. All statements should be rejected which enter into the his- 
torical background or which are in the nature of opinions 
touching matters of fact. 

Teachers will sometimes become voluble about the past 
history of the pupil. Their statements are often useful in later 
connections, but to note them here is to confuse the record and 
to prejudice later findings. Further, the events of the past are 
to be evaluated as significant or immaterial and the former run 
down and verified in the proper place and in the proper connec- 
tions. 


If. 


THE PROBLEM PUPIL 619 


Similarly, such statements as “Is a poor reader,” “Does 
not know his tables,” “Does not concentrate,” will be offered. 
All such assertions are valueless because they are matters of 
opinion concerning conditions which are matters of ascertain- 
able fact. The investigator will perhaps note them as clues to 
be followed up in the next step, but he will not record them as 
symptoms. 

When the story at this initial stage is felt to be all in, it is 
written up and the meat of the matter is extracted in summary. 
In the best administrative technique, the personnel officer will 
probably have gathered at least the outlines of this part of the 
case history before registering and assigning for remedial in- 
vestigation and treatment. 


Examination 
The investigator now turns to the various tests and meas- 


-urements which are capable of giving more precise information. 


Every case must be treated in the light of its own requirements, 
and the best technique, here as elsewhere, will depend upon the 
ingenuity and scholarship and diligence of the case worker. 
Certain fundamental routine tests may be enumerated: 
A. Psycho-physical 

1. Vision 

2. Hearing 

The routine medical inspection data will usually 
clear up the issues on these fundamental sensory abili- 
ties. The investigator should, however, keep an open 
mind and be prepared to return to the question of vi- 
sion especially, if the subsequent progress of investiga- 
tion gives reason to suspect that there may be obscure 
difficulties present. 

3. Co-ordination (neuro-muscular) 

There are no good co-ordination tests available for 
the use of the pedagogical investigator. The issue can, 
however, be canvassed by observing the pupil’s reac- 
tions in physical education and in manual training and 
especially in handwriting. The case worker should in- 


620 


THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


variably ascertain if there has been a history of forced 
transfer from left-handedness to right-handedness. 


. Speech 


Look for evidence of stammering and unusual hesi- 
tation and ascertain if there is a history of stammering. 
Note, also, in this connection a possible history of forced 
transfer of handedness. 


B. Health 
1. Height-weight ratio (see Baldwin-Wood tables) 
2. Nutrition 


The dietary should be canvassed for normal calory 
and vitamine intake. The home-economics department 
can often be drafted into this service. 


en Leeth i 
. General physical condition 


Medical inspection data 

If the investigator has still reason to doubt general 
health condition, the parent should be persuaded to pro- 
vide for a more thorough examination. 


C. Educational 
1. Reading 


The investigation of reading ability goes to the root 
of the matter more critically than any other part of the 
examination, and happily we have reliable test material 
available. In general, there are three fundamental issues 
to be raised: 

a) Can the pupil read at all? That is, does he react to 
the meaning of the printed page? 

Cases are occasionally found in which pupils 
progress incredibly, in schools which are addicted to 
the performance stereotype, with very slender read- 
ing ability. A Burgess test is perhaps the readiest 
means of detecting these people. A good substitute 
and supplement is the following device: A series of 
cards is typed containing simple test directions such 
as “Go to the teacher’s desk and bring me the red 
book.” Several of these cards in succession are 


b) 


c) 


THE PROBLEM PUPIL 621 


handed to the pupil without comment and his reac- 
tions are noted. 
Has the pupil formed the primary adaptation? 

A very considerable number of pupils find their 
way into the high school and even into the college 
without the reading adaptation. They can get the 
meaning from the printed page but they do so labor- 
iously by a process of deciphering. In effect, they 
are usually slow students, and when they reach the 
subjects which require assimilation by extensive 
reading—all subjects in the science type except 
mathematics and grammar—they become problem 
cases. They cannot study effectively subjects which 
require extensive reading because they cannot reflect 
upon the meaning as they read. 

The decipherer can usually be detected by di- 
rect observation of the eye movements (see chap. 
Xvi, Dh287)« 

Rate of reading 

The two primary issues in reading being cleared 
up, it is altogether probable that most pupils read 
at a rate which is a function of their basal rate of 
reaction. If they read slowly, they do so because 
they are mentally slow-moving people. There is 
nothing to worry about in that case; other things be- 
ing equal, a slow section is the treatment indicated. 
Nevertheless, pupils are occasionally found who 
read slowly through sheer indolence or defect in voli- 
tional maturing. Training is required (see passage 
from chap. xvi above noted). 

If the pupil is found to be extremely defective 
in reading ability, but still not a plain non-reader, 
the problem is to find out why. There may be a va- 
riety of reasons. Skilful probing of the case will 
often disclose the difficulty. Children are prone to 
take on all sorts of queer perversions in their learn- 


622 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


ing. The case worker will do well to have at hand 
Gray’s Remedial Cases.” 

In the case of reading, as in the cases of all 
other examination results, the possibility of remote 
and obscure causes at work must be kept in mind. It 
is not to be expected that the regular case worker 
will be qualified to look for such remoter causes any 
more than he is qualified to ferret out obscure phys- 
ical maladies, but he should be sufficiently familiar 
with the progress of scientific work to know where to 
send the pupil for special examination if need be. 

2. Arithmetic and number 
a) General survey 

A test ofthe character of Woody-McCall Mixed 
Fundamentals. If the survey of symptoms discloses 
no special inabilities in subjects of the practical-arts 
and physical-science types, normal response on this 
general test is perhaps sufficient. On the other hand, 
thorough case work leaves no stone unturned and, 
especially if the pupil is poor in the subjects above 
named, further probing may probably be necessary. 

6) Primary number adaptations 

Pupils are not infrequently encountered at ad- 
vanced stages in their school careers who have not 
made the primary adaptations. They may be able 
to count sufficiently well to “make their grades” in 
arithmetic but, when called upon to use arithmetical 
processes in their study in the middle and later sec- 
ondary period, no assimilation takes place. These are 
the folk who are apt to present to the teacher an ab- 
surd result, in physics let us say, wholly unconscious 
of its absurdity. Simple diagnostic tests devised for 
the purpose, out of current work, will usually serve 
to disclose the situation. 

c) Command of the primary number combinations and 
tables 


7W.S. Gray, Remedial Cases in Reading: Their Diagnosis and Treatment. 
Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, 1922. 


THE PROBLEM PUPIL 623 


Effective study in subjects which employ arith- 
metical processes requires automatic command in 
this field. It is not enough that the pupil know his 
tables and combinations; he must know them so 
well that he can use them without focal conscious- 
ness of the process of recall. 

Flash-card testing with observation of the char- 
acter of the responses will readily settle this issue. 

d) Recognition of mathematical situations 

A very common pupil difficulty found in mathe- 
matics and in subjects which require the use of 
mathematics in their assimilative material is illus- 
trated by the absurd question, “Do you multiply or 
divide?” Such pupils are normally the product of 
arithmetical teaching which has failed to set up a 
series of units in which recognition of the mathe- 
matical situation is identified as an essential element 
in the true learning product. Instead of consistently 
working in the application of processes to concrete 
problems, they have had much practice with proc- 
esses, and the essential outcome in useful learning 
has been left to chance. 

In the process of canvassing the symptoms this 
defect may appear. If not, one of the standard arith- 
metical reasoning tests, with scutiny of test re- 
sponses rather than merely noting the score, will 
serve. Still further, typical problems may be set for 
the purpose of discovering whether or not this par- 
ticular defect is present. 

3. The handwriting adaptation and handwriting rate 

Slow learners are sometimes found in whose cases 
the root of the difficulty appears to be the abnormally 
slow rate at which they prepare written papers. The de- 
fect may be due simply to abnormally slow handwriting 
and in that event the case is corrective rather than reme- 
dial. Or it may be due to the fact that the pupil has 
never passed out of the drawing stage; he has simply 
learned to draw rapidly. 


624 


THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


4. The primary composition adaptation 


“Cannot write an acceptable paper.” A pupil who 
exhibits the symptom thus noted is likely to experience 
an abbreviated school career, both because written pa- 
pers are necessarily required in various courses and be- 
cause he lacks an essential study tool. The defect of 
course may be simply a corrective problem in English 
composition. It may, on the other hand, amount to lack 
of the primary adaptation, that is, the pupil does not 
sense that what he writes is intended to mean anything. 
A certain problem pupil at an advanced secondary level 
submitted papers which were a curious jumble of mean- 
ingless paragraphs. In the middle of the paragraph 
when the thought intended to be set forth had been bare- 
ly and vaguely suggested, he would pass to a new para- 
graph and a new line of thought. On being questioned 
concerning the peculiarity, he replied, ‘““When I get 
about so far, it seems to be about time to begin a new 
paragraph.” He exhibited considerable interest when 
the purpose of his writing was made clear to him. It 
transpired that “compositions” were to him simply one 
of the numerous inscrutable requirements which he had 
to meet in order to remain in school. 


. Apperceptive mass 


As we have repeatedly urged in preceding chapters, 
a rich ideational background is essential to learning, 
especially in the science and appreciation types. We 
have reference here, not to the specific background es- 
sential to success in a given course, what we commonly 
term “preparation,” but to the general experiential back- 
ground. A great many baffling problem cases at perhaps 
about fifth-grade level and beyond are without much 
doubt mainly instances of intellectual starvation. The 
pupil fails to assimilate new material because it is hope- 
lessly strange to him. In plain English, he is too ignorant 
to learn. 


THE PROBLEM PUPIL 625 


In investigating this aspect of the problem, one or 
more of the vocabulary tests is serviceable. But the vo- 
cabulary test is not sufficient. It should be furthered by 
a prolonged interview with the pupil, in which the ex- 
aminer seeks to learn the various subjects upon which 
the pupil can talk and in which he exhibits interest. 
Especially should the pupil be encouraged to talk about 
what he has read. The character of the reading, if any 
has been done, is likely to be illuminating, and we may 
find that the pupil has actually never read anything at 
all beyond the rather meager classroom requirements of 
the school which he has been attending. 


6. An essentially important part of process of pedagogical 


training is the development of the capacity of sus- 
tained application in study. Hence the examiner se- 
cures a series of profiles which are typical of the pupil’s 
capacity. 


. Similarly, the lesson-learning attitude is investigated 


(see chap. iv for procedure). 


D. Mentality 
1. A general intelligence test of the comprehensive lan- 


2. 


guage type 
A non-language mental test 

The metal age and I.Q. should be noted on both 
types of test and compared, and the test results com- 
pared with the general revelations of the examination 
for apperceptive mass. A low I.Q. is of course presump- 
tive evidence of low mentality or even defective mental- 
ity, but the disclosures should be carefully weighed in 
the light of other evidence collected in the examination, 
and final decision withheld until after the school, family, 
and social histories have been explored. If the social 
history, for instance, shows that the pupil’s out-of- 
school life exhibits usual capacity, the weight of evi- 
dence from a low I.Q. is lessened. If, on the other hand, 
the family history shows a neurotic or criminalistic rec- 
ord among the ascendants and problem-case school his- 


626 


III. 


THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


tories among the siblings, we are inclined to attach 
more importance to the low intelligence rating in our 
problem. 
The examination results being thus all in, they are digested 
and their apparent net import is noted. 


Health history 


While the health history, as distinguished from the phys- 
ical examination, commonly furnishes little direct enlighten- 
ment to the pedagogical case worker, it sometimes gives the ob- 
servant investigator his clue touching the matter of further 
medical examination at the hands of a qualified practitioner. 
It more often gives us important circumstantial evidence par- 
ticularly on the following points. 

A case of volitional retardation—spoiled child—frequently 
goes back to a history of persistent bad health in the preschool 
years. The mother in her concern for her child gets into the 
habit of shielding him, not only from all which might contrib- 
ute to his ill health, but from any sort of exposure to the nor- 
mal rough contacts of childhood. The habit persists and even 
at high school level the parental attitude has become a sort of 
protective obsession. Now, the essence of case work is account- 
ing for maladjustment. If our retarded child, as a matter of 
fact, began to be spoiled, or is now being spoiled, in school, the 
remedial procedure is quite different from that which is appro- 
priate where the root of the matter is in the home. If the home 
spoiling is a carry-over from a sickly babyhood, remedial pres- 
sure upon the home is different from that which is appropriate 
when the spoiling is traceable merely to neglect or parental self- 
indulgence. 

A case which seems to be experiential in type sometimes 
goes back to a malady in early school years which kept the 
child out of school for a more or less prolonged period, and 
which perhaps handicapped him for some time after his return. 
Now, it makes all the difference in the world whether we can 
say, “This whole tangle of maladjustments originated in that 
attack of measles in the fourth grade and its sequelae”; or 
“The pupil was obliged to repeat IVA and VB and has not 


IV. 


THE PROBLEM PUPIL 627 


made a genuine mastery promotion since.” In the one instance, 
we account for the origin of the difficulty; in the other, we are 
likely to adopt the vague inference, “sluggish learning power.” 
In spite of the fact that the pupil is perfectly well and phys- 
ically vigorous today, his earlier health history gives us a 
means of more adequately understanding him and the factors 
which have been at work in his development. 


School history 


The value of the school history in tracing out the problem 
case is too obvious to require comment, and the ramifications 
which may be found are beyond enumeration. Adequate case 
work will again depend more upon the ingenuity of the investi- 
gator than upon any set body of prescriptions whatsoever. 
Nevertheless, it is convenient to keep in mind the routine of 
items which experience shows should always be checked up. 

A. Promotions 
Has the pupil’s progress through school been regular or 
has he experienced retardation or acceleration at certain 
points and to what extent? Either retardation or accelera- 
tion may have an important bearing on the maladjustment. 


B. Character of learning exhibited or, in common parlance, 
“kind of work done” 


C. Has he moved about from school to school and especially 
from city to city or from country to city? 


D. Quality of the schools attended and especially teaching 
methods and administrative methods used. Inappropriate 
method, especially in reading, and the passing grade in ad- 
ministration often explain much 


E. Relations with individual teachers. Many problem cases 
start life in perverse emotional attitudes generated through 
bygone and forgotten unwise management on the part of 
some teacher. Quite as often, perhaps, maladjustment owes 
its origin to the iniquitous ways of the classroom dema- 
gogue 

During the process of following back the school his- 
tory, we do, in the majority of cases, identify the point at 


628 


THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


which the trouble began. We may still have to go far before 
we can explain satisfactorily just why the difficulty origi- 
nated when it did, but, knowing its beginnings, we at least 
have our point of departure. 


V. Family history and home conditions 


Even more important than the school history in explaining 


a problem pupil is the family history and the present conditions 
in the home life. 


A. Ancestry, parents, and siblings 


The chief contribution to be made here is verification 
of the mentality-test findings. If the examination dis- 
closes a suspiciously low I.Q. on both language and non- 
language tests, and we find a family history in either of the 
parental lines, or near collaterals, in which appear ne’er-do- 
wells, neurotics, criminalistic tendencies, prostitution, or 
other manifestations of the kingdom of evils, especially if 
we find one or more of the brothers and sisters who exhibit 
traits akin to what we find in our problem case, we may not 
be justified ourselves in a finding of true mental deficiency, 
but shall certainly be unwarranted in closing the case with- 
out reference to a competent specialist. 

Conversely, if we find a notably normal family back- 
ground, we gain confidence that our particular problem bas 
its causation outside genetic influences. 


. Economic status and history 


The possible influence of inferior economic status upon 
the child’s well-being, either through partial failure of the 
elementary provisions of food, clothing, and shelter, or 
through the generation of inhibiting emotional attitudes, is 
manifest. Less obvious is the influence of the recent eco- 
nomic history of the family. America is full of instances in 
which less than a generation has sufficed to elevate families 
from long habituation to the usages of the old-world peas- 
antry to affluence. In possession of riches, they are guided 
neither by the traditions of generations of wealth nor by 
the sense of personal dignity which is apt to be the inherit- 
ance of families long accustomed to American standards. 


THE PROBLEM PUPIL 629 


Such families frequently engender in their children per- 
verse attitudes toward school which are apt to be most ob- 
scure and difficult to reach. Typical of such is the occa- 
sional disclosure, in problem cases late in the secondary 
period, that the child has not only himself been bribed all 
his school life but that he has systematically been taught 
that his success at school depends upon his ability to bribe 
his teachers in some fashion. 


. Cultural resources of the home 

Most remedial cases exhibit meager apperceptive mass. 
The statement will stand for many pupils who do not be- 
come problem cases, but the latter, either through native 
curiosity, or fortunate circumstances, or sheer brightness 
and determination, measurably repair the defect. The pupil 
who comes from a cultivated home and an atmosphere of 
books may still become a remedial case, and it is probably 
seldom true that the child of the untutored traces his diffi- 
culties solely to the lack of cultural resources at home. 
Nevertheless, lack of books at home, lack of informative 
conversation, lack of interest in learning and what learning 
means, is always a serious handicap, and, other things be- 
ing equal, may be the critical point in the treatment. In 
cases which are before me as I write, more than one shows 
that marked improvement took place as soon as the pupil 
was induced to become interested in reading good books. 


. Relations within the home 

Entirely apart from sheer lack of control at home, 
many problem cases at school originate in emotional atti- 
tudes set up by various unfortunate relations between the 
child and his parents, between him and one or more broth- 
ers or sisters, between the parents themselves, between one 
of the parents and some member of the household who is 
not a member of the family. Such relationships are not eas- 
ily discovered, but sooner or later the careful and patient 
investigator gets a clue, follows it up, and uncovers the situ- 
ation. The maladjustment thus found may turn out to be 
the primary causation and in that case correction of the 


630 


THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


difficulty will rapidly clear up the whole case. It is more 
likely to be secondary or contributory in its nature, and in 
that case removal means earlier results from the remedial 
treatment and, what is more important, permanent results. 


. Attitude of parents toward society 


The maladies of one generation constantly propagate 
themselves into the next. School problems when followed 
back into the home are sometimes found to consist in per- 
verse emotional and volitional attitudes generated by the 
discontent and rebellion of the parents. When a boy hears 
little about the table at home but diatribes on the injustice 
of the world and of the social order, it is not surprising if his 
whole attitude toward the school is surly and lawless. As 
far as the child’s own problem is concerned, it makes little 
difference whether the parent is simply a grouchy ne’er-do- 
well or an intelligent critic of maladies in the social order. 
The child in either case may take on a perverse attitude 
which seems to him normal and right. 


. Adjustment of parents to American standards 


A situation familiar to the case worker is that of the 
child who represents the first generation on this soil. In 
such families, the children frequently outstrip the parents 
in adjustment to American conditions and of course such 
adjustment is apt to be of an undesirable sort. The par- 
ents, with the best will in the world, are unable to manage 
and guide the children because they do not know how. 
Needless to say, the statement is far from true of all immi- 
grant families, and, even when it is true, many of the chil- 
dren make normal adjustments and do not become prob- 
lems either in school or out. 


. Control 


If there were only one type of parental slackness or 
unfitness in the rearing of children, it would be sufficient to 
note the item and pass on. Unhappily there are various 
types of parental incompetency, and the appropriate correc- 
tive measures vary from type to type. 


THE PROBLEM PUPIL 631 


1. The most difficult of all is, of course, the well-to-do fam- 
ily which is entirely able to control its children but will 
not. We must further distinguish here between the fam- 
ily which systematically spoils one or more of its chil- 
dren and that which simply renounces parental responsi- 
bility—lets the children grow up as they will. 

Spoiling often has its origin, not in parental self-in- 
dulgence, but in a mistaken attitude in the parent—usu- 
ally the mother. More often than not perhaps the atti- 
tude, as we have seen, goes back to a sickly childhood 
or to a much-desired and only child. The resolute, well- 
informed, and tactful personnel worker can often dis- 
charge such an attitude by making the parent conscious 
of its origin and of the mischief it is causing. 

Neglect and sheer parental self-indulgence, of 
course, indirectly results in spoiling, but it achieves 
much more beside. Perhaps the father is more often: 
guilty here than the mother. In general, two methods of 
approach are applicable. In most cases, determined and 
vigorous and plain-spoken representations to the parent 
do, as a matter of fact, achieve the purpose. Neverthe- 
less, parental neglect is rather apt to be a matter of 
neighborhood custom and public opinion. Accordingly, 
the school achieves its purpose by creating a public opin- 
ion favorable to strong home government. Nearly every 
community has a number of agencies through which 
such organization of public opinion can be achieved by 
a strong and capable principal. 

2. Next in order of difficulty, perhaps, is the vicious home 
or that of sheer futile congenital incompetency. When 
the facts have been competently gathered, court action 
removing the child from the custody of the parents is 
usually possible, especially if the school summons to its 
aid one or more of the local social agencies which spe- 
cialize in dealing with such cases. 

3. Finally, the dependent or semidependent home, in which 
children get beyond control, not by reason of parental 
neglect or incompetency, but because the parent, usually 


632 


THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


the mother, must be the breadwinner as well as the 
homemaker. In some of the more enlightened states, 
mother’s aid acts furnish a means of relief. In any prop- 
erly organized community, the personnel administration 
of the school can focus the attention of the relief agen- 
cies upon the case, and, what is perhaps more important, 
furnish them with effective support, both in the way of 
facts and influence. If the community is not properly 
organized, it is the business of the principal as a good 
citizen and a trained man to see that it gets organized. 


VI. Social history and contacts 


We have reference here to that part of the pupil’s back- 


ground which is outside the school and the home. What con- 
tacts has the pupil now and what has he had in the past? 


A. 


What has been his church and Sunday-school history? Is 
the pupil a member or has he been a member of the Boy 
Scouts or has she belonged to the Girl Scouts? With what 
other similar agencies is he or has he been in contact? 
This part of the record is valuable, not only for the sake of 
inventorying the influences which have been at work, but 
also as a list of the agencies which may be got to work upon 
the pupil. | 


. Does the pupil play normally with boys and girls of his 


own age, and has he always done so? 


. Has there been a summer-camp experience? If so, what was 


its character? What was the record in camp? Why was the 
child sent to summer camp? The answer to the last ques- 
tion often throws important light on the home relations. 


. What, if any, are his gang affiliations, wholesome or other- 


wise? If he is now a member of a vicious gang or of one of 
unwholesome tendencies, when did the relation have its be- 
ginnings? Did the beginning of gang life synchronize with 
any noteworthy episode in his school or family history? 


. Is there an abnormal sex history? This question should be 


approached with great deliberation, not because it is unim- 
portant and not altogether because of the peculiar respect 


abe 


THE PROBLEM PUPIL 633 


due to so intimate an aspect of the pupil’s life, but rather as 
a safeguard on the part of the investigator against credulity 
and exaggerated concern. 


F. Is there a court record, either actual or implied? 
G. Has the pupil engaged in “bumming” expeditions and if so 
what were the circumstances? 


Diagnosis 

As the case is worked out step by step, the investigator is 
frequently sure that he has hit upon the explanation of the 
whole difficulty. It may be so, but the thorough case worker 
waits until the evidence is all in and he is ready to think out his 
diagnosis in the light of the whole story. The practical differ- 
ence between hasty inference and deliberate conclusion from 
a well-worked history is apt to be the difference between tem- 
porary adjustment and a permanent cure. Ideally, it is al- 
ways desirable to write up the case, both for the sake of the rec- 
ord itself as an addition to our stock of evidential material and 
because ‘“‘writing maketh the exact man.” Step by step the 
diagnosis is worked out from the facts found in the investiga- 
tion and each step is fortified in summary by a reasoned anal- 
ysis and marshaling of the facts. In general, it is convenient to 
follow somewhat the outline which is exhibited below. 


A. Classification 
All cases are to be classified as either conduct or learn- 
ing in terms of the “symptoms.” As the history develops we 
may classify more exactly as: 

1. Conduct when there is no learning difficulty. The pupil 
does well in his school work, but his conduct is either 
actually or incipiently vicious. We do not include in- 
stances of mere mischievousness traceable to high spirits 
and the like. A case is remedial on the conduct side 
when the pupil’s behavior is such as to indicate the be- 
ginnings of actual legal delinquency. The school has one 
of its chief and fundamental opportunities here in nip- 
ping in the bud cases which would otherwise sooner or 
later become antisocial. 


634 


THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


2. Learning when there is inability on the learning side 
without conduct implications. 

3. Learning-conduct when the problem is found to have 
originated in defective learning and has taken on con- 
duct characteristics as a sequel. 

4. Conduct-learning when the reverse is true. 


B. Diagnostic summary 
The diagnosis is summarized according as primary 
causation is found to be in the field of one or the other of 
the characteristic inabilities or inhibitions, namely, psycho- 
physical, physical, experiential, emotional, volitional, men- 
tal. 


C. Causation 
1. Primary 

There is probably always some point at which any 
given case began to go wrong from causes which carried 
in their train the whole tangle of maladjustments which 
are the pupil’s final heritage. We cannot always work 
back to this primary causation, and it is sometimes ex- 
tremely difficult to distinguish with confidence between 
primary and contributory; but, in most cases, it is en- 
tirely possible to do so. 

2. Secondary, tertiary, etc. 

Out of the primary causation grow others which in 
their turn begin to operate as causes. For example, a 
child in the seventh grade is found to be a remedial case 
in which there are both conduct and learning elements. 
The examination shows a variety of experiential inabili- 
ties, including marked retardation in reading. The 
school history shows no great difficulty until the fourth 
grade. It shows further a bad method of teaching read- 
ing, non-mastery promotions in I and II, and two non- 
promotions in III and IV. Early in IV the pupil begins 
to be classed as a bad boy, and he has a checkered ca- 
reer from that point on, until in VII he is two years re- 
tarded and is impatiently waiting to become sixteen 
years of age. The primary causation is defective reading 


> 


THE PROBLEM PUPIL 635 


ability. This, of course, results in study inability as soon 
as he reaches the levels at which study becomes essen- 
tial. Hence he fails to get necessary additions to his ap- 
perceptive mass and study is further inhibited—second- 
ary causation. He gets out of step with his class and out 
of countenance with the school. He becomes a marked 
conduct case—truancy, “bumming” expeditions, gang 
life, and a near-court case. Of course, this all contrib- 
utes further to his learning inabilities—tertiary causa- 
tion. 

Now we might have found poor vision in this case 
and, following back the health history, have found rea- 
son to believe that the pupil’s eyes had always been bad. 
In that case, we conclude that he failed to learn to read 
properly, not because of a bad method of teaching and 
negligent follow-up, but because he could use his eyes 
only with great difficulty. Thus the primary causation 
became bad eyesight, leading in truth to a chain of other 
causes, but still a marked handicap to all school work. 

3. Contributory 

It frequently happens that the health and family 
histories particularly reveal features of the child life 
which operate as handicaps rather than specific causes. 
These we draw into the picture as contributory causa- 
tion. In the case cited above, we might well have found 
the chain of causation within the school much as de- 
scribed and in addition have found a cheerless and nag- 
ging and abusive home life. The contributory causation 
is never enough to explain the case but it is often enough 
to handicap successful treatment. 


D. Typical diagnosis 
The process of extracting valid diagnosis from a case 
history may perhaps be clearer if we take a typical case and 
follow it through. For this purpose we shall use the case of 
Mildred found in Three Problem Children, before cited. 
Now this case turns up in a clinic whose methods are 
predominantly psychiatric. It might well have appeared as 


636 


THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


a remedial case in a public school. Supposing such to have 
been true, what could the school’s personnel office have 
made out of the history? 

The primary causation here is practically complete in- 
ability to read the printed page. The pupil has never actu- 
ally passed beyond the first grade, although she belongs 
normally in the sixth. As far as we can read the scanty 
school history available, the original school practically 
seems never to have taken the trouble to teach the child to 
read, and other schools either could not or would not study 
the case and apply remedial treatment. The psychological 
examination shows undoubtedly normal mentality and the 
physical examination shows normal physical development 
and good health, save*for the maladies noted below. 

Non-promotion resulting from the primary cause has 
brought about a marked emotional disorder contributed to 
by the home relations, particularly those subsisting be- 
tween Mildred and her younger sister. She becomes sullen 
and moody in the extreme, with occasional outbursts of 
temper, and of course hostile to all the school means in her 
life. Thus a secondary causation growing directly out of the 
primary which operates to further complicate a disordered 
personality, but which likewise, from the pedagogical point 
of view, is enough to inhibit any chance possibility of the 
child’s correcting of her own initiative the original difficulty. 

Still a third link in the causal chain is the almost com- 
plete failure to develop any normal ideational background 
such as learning in the school requires. Even though she 
might now learn to read, the whole educational content 
proper to the elementary period must be built up. 


Contributory 


There are two and possibly three elements in the health 
and family history which are contributory to the main lines 
of causation. 

1. Mildred has been afflicted with enuresis and, since she 
has slept with the same younger sister who has ridiculed 
her school failures and apparent stupidity, the shame 


THE PROBLEM PUPIL 637 


which she experiences clearly adds to the emotional dis- 
order which is the outstanding symptom in the clinic. 

2. She is further afflicted with congenital syphilis, and has 
been undergoing painful treatment which she greatly 
dreads and resents. The medical examination does not 
reveal serious effects of the malady on her general health 
as yet. 

3. The home is in general squalid. The father is a drunken 
loafer, a syphilitic himself and presumably responsible 
for a similar condition in the mother and in this child. 
Mildred is, however, fond of the father, and it is perhaps 
doubtful that the generally unfavorable condition in the 
home contributes much to the problem. 

The contributory aspects of this case may or may 
not be in themselves sufficient to have created a formid- 
able problem, apart from the primary causation found 
in the school and its sequelae. It is clear that they could 
not have created this particular problem. It is plain, 
however, that the contributory causation must if pos- 
sible be removed in the treatment. 

We can appropriately summarize the objectives of 
the whole case investigation as follows: Just what is the 
trouble? Where did the trouble originate? What made 
the trouble in the beginning? 

VIII. Treatment 
A. Out of the diagnostic findings grows the definite, systematic 
plan of treatment. In Mildred’s case treatment was planned 
according to the following scheme: 

1. The fundamental attack is made upon the primary 
causation, that is, a tutor is employed to teach the child 
to read. 

2. The personality disorder and its implications in con- 
duct are recognized by endeavoring to convince Mildred 
that she has friends and by securing the cooperation of 
teachers to that end. It is not expected that this element 
in the case will wholly clear up until the primary causa- 
tion is removed and the pupil has found her way into 
something like her normal age-grade standing. 


638 


THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


3. Attempts are made to build up a working apperceptive 
mass by: 
a) Establishing relations with other girls of her age, 

which has also important connections with 2. 

6) Creating an interest in reading as soon as she has 
progressed far enough to read at all. 

4. The contributory causation is met in part at least by 

ameliorating the conditions at home. 

a) The sleeping arrangements are rearranged. Enuresis 
subsequently ceased. 

6b) The child is helped with her dispensary problem. 

c) Attempts are made to improve the general home con- 
ditions, but without conspicuous success. 

In the end the pupil is so nearly adjusted that she is 
able to lead a fairly normal and happy life. 

Now, as we have seen, we are using this case as 
illustrative of a rather extreme pedagogical remedial 
case. There is little in such cases which will not yield to 
strictly pedagogical treatment, with reasonable psy- 
chiatric and medical advice and support. 

After systematic remedial work in a school has be- 
come well established, a representation of the agencies 
commonly employed may look something like the chart 
shown in Figure 18. The route of the typical remedial 
case is something like the representation in Figure 19. 


B. As the treatment proceeds, a complete record of treatment 


is kept by the person assigned to general oversight of the 
case. If the case is predominantly learning in character, the 
remedial teacher will ordinarily keep the record, collecting 
data from other members of the staff to whom are assigned 
special phases. If the case is primarily conduct with out-of- 
school connections, then the record will naturally be kept 
by the visiting teacher. 

A carefully prepared written record is desirable, first, 
because such tends to become a valuable control encourag- 
ing systematic work; and, second, because every case so 
treated adds to the stock of knowledge applicable to the in- 


5 
—— ee. 


THE PROBLEM PUPIL 6309 


terpretation and treatment of subsequent cases. The record 

contains the following major elements: 

1, What is done from day to day or from week to week, 
method and procedure. In cases which are not assigned 
to outside specialists, this will of course constitute the 
largest part of the volume of the record. 

2. Progress in clearing up contributory causation. 









ficer 


Personnel o 











Custodial care in special 
‘rooms or institutions for 
mental defectives 














Remedial teacher for correc- 
.tion of defective experiential 
background with subassign- 
ments to various members of. 
the staff 






Medical specialists for physical 
and psycho-physical defects 






Visiting 
teacher 


















| Social-service agencics for 
home reconstruction and 
general out-of-school. core 
rection 


Specially adapted members of 
the staff for emotional and. 
volitional inabilities and, in 
extreme cases, the clinic 







Fic. 18 


Rime alten eras 
‘Regular school activities Remedial assignments 


3. Results of periodical significant tests, corresponding to 
the examination. 

4. The observed unsupervised behavior in so far as it con- 
tributes evidential material touching the progress of re- 
adjustment. 


IX. Follow-up 

After the case is believed on the evidence to have been re- 
adjusted and has been restored to regular school standing, it is 
reconsidered from time to time for the sake of noting whether 
or not any of the old symptoms have returned. If the pupil re- 
lapses, he is of course restored to remedial treatment. Other- 
wise, after a reasonable test interval under norma! conditions, 
a follow-up survey is made, included in the case history, and 
the case is closed. 





FIG. 19 


CHAPTER XXXII 
ORGANIZING THE SCHOOL 


reiterate the principle that the school exists for the 

\ \ stimulation and guidance of the individual pupil into 

a state of adjustment to the physical and social and 

spiritual world in which he must live. We contrast with that con- 

ception of the office of the school in this closing chapter, just as 

we have in nearly every preceding chapter, concrete practices 

founded upon the implied conception that the function of the 

school consists in organizing courses, hearing lessons, and re- 

cording pupil performance on the content thereof. The whole 

notion of mastery teaching with its corrective and remedial work 

ultimately requires a theory and practice of school organization 

fundamentally unlike that appropriate to the school which is 
committed to the lesson-learning teaching technique. 

When we turn back in retrospect to the small village or 
country school of other days, and to the small college, we find a 
situation in which the schoolmaster could oversee the develop- 
ment of all his pupils. The president of the small college fre- 
quently felt called upon to exercise a pastoral function over the 
students committed to his care. Schools were small and all the 
members of the faculty or teaching staff could know all the stu- 
dents or pupils. The curriculum was simple and extra-curricular 
activities were not known under that name. These old school- 
masters were obliged to depend upon common sense and their 
humanitarian inclinations in the guidance of their pupils, for 
they had not a tithe of the instrumentalities for the study of the 
individual with which we are equipped today. As schools in- 
creased in enrolment, organization became necessary and organ- 
ization took the course which we have repeatedly noted and crit- 
icized. System and not the pupil came to occupy the pedagogical 


640 


ORGANIZING THE SCHOOL 641 


mind, and the small school tended to copy its larger contempo- 
rary. Schools came to be judged by the system which they em- 
ployed and not by their adaptation to the requirements of the 
particular situations in which they were supposed to function. 
Witness, for instance, the futility and incongruity of the eight- 
grade system as applied to the one-room country school and the 
strenuous efforts of rural boards of education to make over the 
countryside in order to get a situation appropriate to eight 
grades. 

Now the modern school has to be organized so as to do sys- 
tematically and on a large scale what could be done and often 
was done by the old village schoolmaster who was pastorally 
inclined. In the preceding chapters, we have sketched specific 
administrative needs to meet specific situations. It remains to 
bring these scattered sketches into a coherent composition. 


I. Flexible arrangement of clearly defined courses 


As we have seen, any course in the secondary period should 
stand for a definite development in the pupil’s attitude toward 
the world in which he lives or for a definite special ability or art 
which he has set out to acquire. Such a course contrasts with one 
which is primarily a body of knowledge which it is hoped may 
have some use if the pupil shall come to possess it. Credit for 
such a course is credit for a real piece of adjustment and not 
credit for time spent. As we have further seen, such a conception 
of the nature of courses at once parts company with the notion of 
the academic year, of nine calendar months more or less, as the 
base line for school organization. Flexible arrangement has the 
following major implications: 

1. A given course should be opened to sections which are ready 
for it at such intervals as may be required but oftener than 
once a year or once a semester. Such an arrangement is likely 
to require a few spare rooms, but the larger the school, and 
consequently the larger the number of sections, the less is the 
likelihood of this handicap, if such it is. 

2. Credit for a course not taken or taken only in part, when ade- 
quate testing shows the pupil to have acquired the adapta- 


642 


THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


tions for which the course stands, rather than credit for an 
amount of time spent equivalent to that ordinarily devoted 
to the course. 


. Use of the fast-and-slow section and of the skip-section prin- 


ciples when pupils have shown under actual schoolroom con- 
ditions that they are naturally rapid or naturally slow learn- 
ers. 


. Release of pupils and the expanded individual curriculum 


As soon as the administrative psychology which is asso- 
ciated with thinking in terms of ground-to-be-covered and 
time-to-be-spent is broken down and there is substituted 
thinking in terms of pupil development, it ceases to seem im- 
portant that every pupil in school shall meet appointments 
every day with the group with which he is in general asso- 
ciated, or that he shall study only what the rest of his group 
studies and then all together shall study something else. 
Hence, the principles of pupil release and of the voluntary 
project come to be of major administrative importance in 
flexible course arrangements. In fact, the principle, if fully 
understood and faithfully and intelligently applied, will “take 
up the slack” in almost any school in the secondary period. 
Rapid learners in spelling in the fourth grade, for instance, 
are released for reading-room activities. Talented pupils in 
science at senior high school level are released for voluntary 
project work. 


. Hard-and-loose sequence requirements 


As we have seen, some courses in their nature are severe- 
ly sequential in character, in some the sequential order is of 
minor importance, and in others still the sequential order is 
of no importance at all. It makes all the difference in the 
world in the flexibility of course arrangements whether a 
pupil who has completed a particular course is limited to a 
single course in a given field as his next step or has a choice 
between several courses. 


. Continuous scheduling 


It is probably true that the ee to a policy of hard-and- 
fast semester or year courses is to be found in the exigencies 


ORGANIZING THE SCHOOL 643 


of making up the schedule of pupil class assignments. It is 
administratively exceedingly convenient to make the sched- 
ule for a year, with a few minor changes at the end of the first 
semester, especially if all such staff work has to be done by 
an overworked principal. Thus the whole educative process 
in the school becomes adjusted to the Procrustean bed of 
the schedule of courses. Rather should the large school be 
equipped with a staff officer whose chief business it is to be in 
charge of the schedule and to rearrange the same from time 
to time, with minimum interruption of the routine of class 
appointments and minimum loss of time to pupils who are 
ready for new course assignments. The weekly personnel re- 
ports from the several teachers should keep such an officer 
well informed several weeks in advance of the probable time 
at which new sections will be needed. Such continuous sched- 
uling becomes more understandable and more feasible when 
it is viewed in the light of 2, 3, 4, and 5 above. - 
. The postponement of departmentalization 

Throughout the period of general education, the teach- 
er’s knowledge of the pupil is of primary importance, and his 
knowledge of subject matter taught, not of minor but of sec- 
ondary importance. The properly equipped, well-educated 
teacher in the elementary school should have command of the 
whole curriculum content sufficient for the needs of the chil- 
dren who are met. As the pupils pass on into the high-school 
region, their requirements become more exacting and aca- 
demic specialization on the part of the teacher more neces- 
sary. Nevertheless, it is well to bear in mind that, human na- 
ture being what it is, the teacher’s academic specialization 
tends to be at the expense of knowledge of the pupil and his 
educational needs. Now in the direction of flexibility of 
course arrangements and in the direction of breaking down 
the graded-school stereotypes, there are great administrative 
advantages in the non-departmentalized room. The teacher 
can know her pupils much better at a time when pupil knowl- 
edge is of maximum importance, the numerous correlations in 
subject matter are more obvious and more easily managed, 


644 


THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


minimum time is lost by pupils in passing from room to room, 
the check on mastery of the true learning products is more 
likely to be complete, and the teacher is more inclined to spe- 
cialize on pupils than on academic subject matter. 


II. Accurate and significant pupil accounting 


Recalling our fundamental conception of the school as an in- 
stitution in which the development and adjustment of the pupil 
through study in sundry courses and through other experience 
takes place, we become much less concerned with a record which 
shows the character of his performance than with one which re- 
cords evidence of his development. True, the consistent story of 
the character of his performance may tell us much of what sort 
of a person he is, but that is another story. Whenever we have 
occasion to know, the tray of weekly reports tells us in plain 
English, and it tells us of the standard of performance which he 
has attained rather than of his average performance. We shall 
need the following records: 


A. The educational register 
1. Courses completed 

We are not interested in recording incompletes and 
failures. In fact, there are no failures; a pupil may ap- 
pear as a chronic remedial case and ultimately be trans- 
ferred to custodial care or discharged as an evident non- 
learner or menace to the school. Such a record at least 
purports to be an accurate description of an educational 
situation. A record of “failure” is indeterminate and de- 
void of educational meaning. A pupil once enrolled in a 
given course is not finally reported until he has complet- 
ed the course, albeit the record may show further that he 
is for the time a registered remedial case. 

In the same category with classroom courses are the 
elements of attitude toward conduct. No entry at all 
means retardation, that is, that the pupil has not taken on 
the characteristics of normal conduct at his age. The 
same symbol used for indicating the completion of a 
course, if entered opposite an element of conduct develop- 


ORGANIZING THE SCHOOL 645 


ment, indicates normal development with respect to that 
element. 
2. Descriptive marks 

The marks used to indicate sustained interest and 
educational self-dependence are developmental indexes 
and not estimates of performance. They are entered in 
the appropriate space for the course to which reference is 
made. For example: 


| General Science | M | 


means that the pupil is believed to have made the adapta- 
tions corresponding to the course. 


Biology | MN 


means that the pupil has completed the course and has 
exhibited evidence of sustained interest. 


means that the pupil has completed the course, has ex- 
hibited evidence of sustained interest and of tested voli- 
tional and intellectual ability to study by himself. 

The letters used, of course, have no particular sanc- 
tity. Other symbols would do as well, save for the prin- 
ciple that A, B, and C are likely to degenerate into per- 
formance grades by sheer association. 

3. Cross-references to the supplementary records, especially 
to the remedial case register 


. The remedial case register 
Already described (see p. 615). 


. The master-card 


Since so much of constructive school administration and 
of effective teaching depends upon information about the pu- 
pil, it is necessary, for the purpose of saving time alone, to 


646 


THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


record as much of such information as is susceptible of sym- 
bolic expression in a form which is easily accessible. For this 
purpose the master-card is set up. 


In appearance, the master-card employed in the labora- 


tory schools is 11 by 1634 inches in dimensions and has entry 
spaces for 425 items. This list is doubtless longer than is 
needed for routine administration. A working card should, 
however, have entry spaces for the following classes of fac- 
tual material: 


I. 


The main facts of family background, including especial- 
ly racial stock on both sides; occupation of both parents; 
number of brothers and sisters living and dead; order of 
birth among the children; parents living or dead; gross 
marital relations, as divorced, separated, or normal; step- 
father or stepmother; foster home. 


. School history, including especially age and grade place- 


ment on entering the present school and schools previous- 
ly attended. The educational register, the case folder, 
and the master-card itself of course exhibit school history 
in the present school. 


. Standardized test scores 


Whenever a standardized test is given in the school, 
it should be understood that the score will be transmitted 
for entry on the master-card and the test papers included 
in the case folder. 

Health history 

The common diseases of childhood and such other 

portions of the health history as are likely to prove signifi- 


cant. A list of important items is printed and arranged 
for checkmarking. 


. Physical-examination data 


The important routine facts are: height, weight, and 
height-weight index; vision and hearing; dental develop- 
ment as normal, retarded, or precocious; condition of 
teeth; sexual maturity (girls) ; pubescence, as pre-pubes- 
cent, first, second, or third stage of pubescence. 


— Leow. = ee ee ee ae 


ORGANIZING THE SCHOOL 647 


The master-card data should of course be checked 
over annually for corrections and extensions. Some items 
are in their nature such as need to be entered but once; 
for instance, date of birth. Some may need correction or 
extension; for instance, sundry items in the family his- 
tory. Some must be entered anew once a year; for in- 
stance, physical and educational data. 

D. The case folder 
The veritable mine of evidential material touching the 
growth and development of the pupil is the folder in which is 
deposited all significant material which is likely to be useful 
in accurately appraising his educational progress. Its use is 
limited chiefly by the space requirements, for it is apt to 
prove bulky. Among the types of material which should be 
found in the case folder are the following: 
1. Test papers 
2. Aseries of samples of English writing gathered periodical- 
ly, at least once a year 
3. Noteworthy productions, especially at senior high school 
and junior college level, which are used as evidences of 
approaching self-dependence 
4. Records of significant behavior episodes contributed by 
the teachers from time to time 
§. Sustained application profiles 

Parallel with the case folder and in reality constitut- 
ing a part thereof is the personnel officer’s tray of teach- 
er’s periodical report cards. 

E. Classroom and departmental records and folders 
There are included here such material as pupil-reading 
records; papers submitted, from which the best sample final- 
ly goes to the general case folder; series of sustained applica- 
tion profiles; unit test papers and distributions. 


III. Organization of the teaching staff for pupil study 
There are two objectives in pupil study: (1) perfecting that 
understanding of the pupil which is essential to teaching, and (2) 
checking up the actual growth of pupils by noting their unsuper- 
vised behavior. 


648 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


The first, of course, yields its chief results in the application 
of corrective and remedial teaching, in planning the pupil’s pro- 
gram, in opening up special opportunity for special talent. It is 
the second with which we are chiefly concerned at this point. 

No matter how acute and well calculated our testing, no 
matter how faithful and diligent reteaching and follow-up may 
be, we are often disappointed in the educational result. We have 
repeatedly seen that the ultimate testing is in terms of the pupil’s 
unsupervised behavior and in terms of such evidence as we 


| Reading-confer- Remedial teacher 
ence. teachers— or teachers | 


staff conferences 








pres 

cd 

od 
S°o 
3 Oo 
mo | 
nS 5 
c ye 3 = e ° °¢ 
a ui oO Personnel office—vice- Special examining 

+) e e 
S88 principal staff as needed 
es 

- Oo 
qs 7 
ey) 
Seo . . Visiting teacher or 
A Sd Pupil advisers—staff ries sid 
S 3a conferences eacners—outside 
Ons contacts 

FIG. 20 


may be able to collect touching his self-dependence, his inclina- 
tion to do right because it is right and to utilize the products of 
his education in the conduct of life and the pursuit of his satis- 
factions. Such final and fundamental testing requires the organ- 
ization of the teaching staff for pupil observation and study. 

In the course of the chapters which have preceded, we have 
noted all the elements of such organization each in its proper 
place and attached to its own specific function. It is perhaps use- 
ful to see the elements brought together, and Figure 20 will show 
the organization schematically. 


GRADUALLY OR AT ONCE? 


As he has turned these pages, a persistent question has 
doubtless presented itself to the experienced teacher and admin- 


———E————— 


ORGANIZING THE SCHOOL 649 


istrator: Can any school be thus made over in its whole theory 
and practice of teaching at once or even in a brief period? The 
wise answer is clearly, No. 

Pedagogical history is full of the wreckage of method, in 
itself sound and good, picked up and put into practice in an 
apish sort of fashion by enthusiasts eager to be in pedagogical 
style. The teaching body which is willing to undertake the task 
of putting its theory and practice upon a basis of systematic pro- 
cedure, checked up step by step by well-considered evidence of 
pupil development, must expect to experience a relatively slow 
process of personal readjustment. Insight comes slowly. I do 
not say that the reader must forthwith proceed to apply for 
leave of absence and resort to a school of education for further 
training. That would doubtless help greatly but only in case the 
student were willing to undergo the process of self-imposed re- 
flection and severe intellectual discipline which would be re- 
quired if he were to remain in residence in his own school and 
work out the problem by himself. Furthermore, the student of 
systematic method must expect that his task will never end. 
Once given a method of pedagogical thinking, and that is all I 
hope to have accomplished in this volume, the practicing teacher 
will find that the more he learns about his art the more there is to 
learn. There is nothing here which can be mastered once for all 
and then put in practice forever afterward, with assurance of a 
new and better kind of educational result. 

No matter how clearly all seem to catch the essential mes- 
sage of the book and no matter how promising the early results 
may be, the school itself as a whole must grow into it little by lit- 
tle. Some schools, like some pupils, will grow rapidly and others 
slowly, but, slow or fast, growth must be the end in view and not 
some wonderful transformation. There are some features of the 
mastery procedure to which any school is readily adaptable, and 
others that must wait until the school has grown up to them. I 
think it may prove serviceable to my fellow-practitioners if I 
suggest the order in which the different features can probably be 


650 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


best adopted. In so doing, I do not mean to imply that a fixed 

order by years is essential, that the first of the list be adopted 

the first year, the next the second, and so on seriation to the end. 

It may be that several features will be in full working order by 

the end of the first year and maybe not. 

Several features can be applied to the ordinary lesson-learn- 
ing technique: 

1. Control technique in both aspects, and in all its implications, is ap- 
plicable, serviceable, and essential in any form of teaching whatso- 
ever 

2. Development of reading-room 

3. Organization of adviser and reading-conference groups 

4. Study of the individual pupil either 
a) By the method of simple intelligent observation and enlight- 

ened common sense, or (later in experimental cases) 
b) By the method of systematic case work 

5. Remedial work in a few cases which have been studied for the pur- 
pose. Of course, from time immemorial, devoted teachers have 
done a great deal of this kind of work, guided only by their native 
teaching spirit and ready human understanding. There have been 
suggested in the preceding chapters in numerous instances where 
to look for remedial cases, what the beginnings are likely to be, 
wherein typical causations consist 


When the school is ready to undertake mastery teaching 
proper, progress from the fundamental and simple to the acces- 
sory and difficult features will probably be found somewhat 
after the following order: 


6. Mastery as applied to the true learning products, in unit organ- 
ization, type by type and department by department 

7. Study at school in the place of home study, with the voluntary 
project in its several types of usefulness and significance 

8. Appraisal of progress by accounting for the learning products 
rather than by performance grades. Note that performance 
grades are as applicable to 6 and 7 as to the lesson-learning pro- 
cedure. We have identified and exhibited their fallacy but their 
fallacy is no greater under mastery teaching than elsewhere 


ORGANIZING THE SCHOOL 651 


9. Flexible arrangement of courses and final abandonment of pupil 
administration by grade promotions and credits for time spent 
10. Complete staff organization 


CAN IT BE AFFORDED? 


Throughout this volume, and especially while reading this 
concluding chapter, the query has probably frequently been 
raised, Is not this all impossibly expensive? To answer the ques- 
tion, we must remind ourselves of the place of the school in the 
economic cycle. The school can justify itself economically, no 
matter what its cost in money, only in so far as it creates eco- 
nomic values at least equivalent to those which it consumes. It 
can create such values only in so far as it succeeds in actually 
bringing its pupil body into adjustment with the world in which 
the pupils must live as adults. In the long run every pupil must 
pay the cost of educating another through excess of economic 
values which he directly creates and which are attributable to 
the education which he has received, or through the relative sav- 
ings in the consumption of goods and services which he makes 
possible, or through the intelligence which he contributes to so- 
ciety in its utilization of the planet as the patrimony of mankind. 
Such values can accrue only as the pupil masters the content of 
his education in the form of the permanent attitudes and ac- 
quired abilities to which we have so often referred. No matter 
how excellent the curriculum, it remains a thing of paper until 
the pupil has mastered the content thereof. No matter how won- 
derful the building, it remains a mere meeting place until the pu- 
pils who congregate therein emerge with an actual education and 
not merely a collection of certificates of time spent in school. 
Neither curriculum nor building nor equipment is the core of the 
process of education, but rather effective teaching. Given the 
latter in the form of patient, systematic molding of youthful de- 
velopment which guarantees such development by the very na- 
ture of the process which it administers, it makes little difference 


652 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


what schools cost in money for they will always then in their 
product pay the bill and something over. 

As far as classroom teaching is concerned, the teacher who 
is qualified to teach at all is qualified to teach systematically 
with due regard to the central issue of pupil study and pupil de- 
velopment. Such qualifications imply adequate education, ade- 
quate training, professional devotion and dependability, willing- 
ness to work hard, and long hours. Such people can command 
good incomes but perhaps no more than our best salary sched- 
ules now imply. Any others are expensive at any price for the 
reasons set forth in the preceding paragraph. 

Systematic teaching implies an adequate staff of administra- 
tive officers, some of them specialists. Much the same reasoning 
applies here which applies to the qualifications of teachers. A 
school which is inadequately staffed with a principal and some 
associates whose duties are chiefly clerical and promotional in 
type is apt to be a fatally expensive school because it leaves to 
chance any genuine education of its pupils. For the most part, 
the latter loiter more or less good-naturedly along a primrose 
path, and their attainments in the end are the miserable cheat 
of a mere smattering which is so common and so often deplored. 

We can, however, approach the issue more nearly and speak 
in terms of current cost. 

One of the outstanding revelations in the literature of school 
costs is the waste attributable to retardation. When pupils take 
two or more years to learn what they should have learned in one 
year, they accumulate in the schools and the enrolment becomes 
expanded beyond what it otherwise would be. Such expansion 
entails additional cost in teachers’ salaries, supplies, and main- 
tenance of buildings, and it engenders excessive capital costs for 
buildings and equipment. It is a fortunate school system in 
which the excess cost traceable to this item does not exceed 10 
per cent. Now, the tendency of the systematic teaching and ad- 
ministrative technique which we have been studying is to reduce 
retardation and increase acceleration—perhaps to make net re- 


eS ere SS 


ORGANIZING THE SCHOOL 653 


tardation a minus quantity. The elimination of net retardation 
in most cities of ten thousand population and upward would 
alone save enough in operating and capital costs to pay the cost 
of adequate administrative staffs. 

The same issue can be approached from another angle. The 
traditional school career is fourteen years above the kinder- 
garten and including the junior college. Nearly ail students of 
the problem agree that this is probably two years too much. The 
waste is commonly attributed, and rightly, to the inflexible char- 
acter of our graded system. Experimentally, the period has been 
reduced to thirteen years for all pupils who originate in the lab- 
oratory schools and a further reduction of an additional year or 
its equivalent has been attained for many pupils. If we can re- 
duce the most expensive years of the program of general educa- 
tion by two, or even one, the saving in actual current cost will go 
far to offset the added costs attributable to a more efficient or- 
ganization. 

There is still a third issue in the problem of retardation, al- 
though it is related rather to ultimate economic cost than to cur- 
rent financial cost. Retardation means elimination, that is, the 
pupil leaves school and gets more or less permanently out of ad- 
justment to his world. The cost accrues in the form of some 
dependency, a great deal of delinquency, and a general drag 
upon social betterment. 

We have undertaken in America such a program of univer- 
sal education as the world never yet dreamed of. It would not be 
difficult to show that great benefits have accrued, but educating 
the masses and ameliorating the conditions under which they 
live creates as many problems as it solves. There are not want- 
ing manifold evidences that we have failed to realize the stu- 
pendous power of the engine we have set in operation. We can- 
not turn back; we must, for very existence’ sake, go forward. 
But going forward means the substitution for the casual meth- 
ods of the past of intensive, systematic procedures in the hands 
of very highly trained workers, governed and led by still more 
highly trained executives and boards of control. 




















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INDEX 


Abilities: acquired, 27; term in ad- 
ministrative vocabulary, 554; clas- 
sification, 556; mental ability, 557; 
special ability traits, 560; confused 
with adjustment, 562 

Absorption: type of attention, 
goal, 135 

Academy, 3 

Adaptation: reading, 8; primary, 8-11; 
handwriting, 10; social, 11; defined, 
22; understandings, 25; appreciation, 
26; abilities, 27; practice, 28; lan- 
guage arts, 437, 470; pure practice, 
505 

Additional courses in administering 
superior pupil, 588 

Adjustment: education as adjustment, 
212; basis for sectioning class, 564; 
and maturity, 567; term in adminis- 
trative vocabulary, 562 

Administration: stereotypes, 4-6; part 
of the teaching process, 544 

Administrative technique, 543; ad- 
ministrative scheme, 546; vocabulary, 
552; interpretation of ‘‘course,” 575; 
sequence of courses, 578; skip-sec- 
tions, 581; expanded pupil program, 
586; s upplementary project, 587; ad- 
ditional courses, 588; credit, 590; 
identifying and guiding interest, 591; 
self-dependence, 595; course report, 
599; personnel report, 601; marks and 
grades, 603; home reports, 607 

Algebra: typical unit organization in, 
211; as study tool, 279 

ayer in attitude toward conduct, 
37 

Apperceptive mass, 163; relation to 
individual differences, 163; seg- 
mented, 163; perverted, 164; guidance 
and control, 165; in literature, 335 


Application: effect in volitional devel- 
opment, 104, 107; sustained applica- 
tion, 107, 135; product gt training, 
135; measuring, 135; ical un- 
trained pupil, 135; oan influence 
in some cases, 138, 142; training, 139; 
relation to learning, 143; case exhibit, 


103; 


657 


143; effect of training, 148; in diag- 
nosis of problem case, 150; in super- 
vised study, 285; in attitude toward 
conduct, 387 


Appreciation type: defined, 90; opera- 
tive technique, 317, 326; nature of the 
learning units, 316; mastery in, 321; 
inhibition in, 322; place in education, 
323; effort required, 331 

Arithmetic: typical unit organization, 
207; as study tool, 279 

Assimilation: assimilative material, 25; 
in learning cycle, 154; assimilative 
material in science, 172; assimilative 
material in history, 175; assimilative 
material in mathematics, 203; as- 
similative material in grammar, 207; 
in science type, described, 227; in 
science type, operative technique, 
257; in science type, place in adapta- 
tion, 257; in science type, relation to 
study, 260; in science type, class- 
room, 262; in science type, labora- 
tory, 263: in science type, we lpaecin 
264; in science type, testing, 292; in 
practical arts, 429 

Attention: in the learning situation, 
103; group attention, 106; sustained, 
107; Measuring group, I15; reliability 
of measure, 122; training observers, 
123; phase analysis, 124; use of group- 
attention scores, 128, 130; spurious 
attention, 129; securing good con- 
trol, 130 

Attitude: intelligence, 21; appreciation, 
21; get-by, 44; lesson-learning, 64 

Automobile, in practical arts, 421 


Bailey, D. C., 198 

Barnard, Arthur F., 191 

Beauchamp, W. L., 87, 565 

Behavior: term in administrative vo- 
cabulary, 571; case folder, 572 

Ben Blewett Junior High School, 141 

Biography, in attitude toward conduct, 

8 
Biology, typical unit organization, 185 
Blacksmithing, in practical arts, 423 


658 THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


Brightness and dulness, 559; the bright 
pupil must learn, 562 

Bulletin board, in apperception mass, 
168 


Case folder, 647 

Case work: procedure in, 608, 616; 
corrective case, 612; remedial case, 
615 

Chemistry, typical unit organization, 
184 

Classes at work, in science type, 266 

Classroom, as study-room, 262 

College: integration with elementary 
and high schools, 4-5; origin, 3; ad- 
mission to, 67 

Common school, 3 

Composition: as study tool in science 
type, 282, as study tool in literature, 
364; adaptation, 437, 479; operative 
technique, 478, 487; contrast with 
performance skills, 479; interference 
of maturing process, 481; relation to 
organized intellectual control, 483, 
478, 502; usage teaching, 483, 487; 
evidence of, 484; administrative 
technique, 501 

Conduct: right attitude toward, 373; 
operative technique, 389 

Conference groups, in free reading, 346 

Constructive activity, in apperceptive 
mass, 169 

Continuous scheduling, 642 

Control technique, 103; effect of, 108; 
use of, in supervision, 111, 128; 
analysis, 112 

Co-operation, in attitude toward con- 
duct, 384 

Corrective teaching: corrective cases, 
85; in science type, 289; in attitude 
toward conduct, 392 

Credit: credit attitude, 69, 74; reflected 
in student ethics, 70; administrative 
technique, 590; for course not taken 
or taken in part, 641 

Criticism, right acceptance of, in at- 
titude toward conduct, 383 

Courses: administrative interpretation, 
575; Sequence, 578; course report, 
599; flexible arrangement, 641 


Deferred satisfactions, in attitude to- 
ward conduct, 377 


Diagnosis, in remedial case work, 633 

Dictionary, in usage teaching, 494 

Direct teaching: contrast with lesson- 
learning, 48; evidence for, 62; in 
operative technique, 160 

Drama, 355 

Drawing: as study tool in sciences, 281; 
in practical arts, 423 


Duty, sense of, in attitude toward con- 
duct, 387 


agp typical unit organization, 

I 

Educational register, 644 

Electrical appliances, in practical arts, 
420 

Elementary school: origins, 3; integra- 
tion with high school and college, 4-5 

Equipment, for study-room, 262 

Ethics, in relation to conduct, 375 

Examinations, in remedial case work, 
619 

Executive management, 545 

Expanded pupil programs, 586, 642 

Experiential deficiency, in problem case, 
science type, 288 

Exploration in science type: described, 
225; purpose, 232; operative tech- 
nique, 237 7 


Fair play, sense of, in attitude toward 
conduct, 380 

Family history, in remedial case work, 
628 

Follow-up, in remedial case work, 639 

Foreign language: operative technique 
in, 453; testing, 458; pronunciation 
and phonetics, 466; free reading, 468; 
reading adaptation, 470; problem 
cases, 471; administration of courses, 
472; grammar in, 473 


Gas engine, in practical arts, 421 

Geometry, typical unit organization in 
certain case, 214 

German schools, 17 

Gradually or at once, 648 

Grammar: unit in, 199, 215; use in 
education, 216, 445, 473; typical unit 
organization, 218; legitimate place in 
foreign language, 473 

Guide sheets, in supervised study, 283 


i ae 


INDEX 


High school: origin, 3; integration with 
elementary school and college, 4-5; 
attempts to define, 67 


Hill, Howard C., 191 

History: Bidcdonal use of, 187; units 
in, 189; typical unitary organizations, 
196 

Home and school: in book selections 
349; in A psearenng arts projects, 413; 
notice to home, 607; home condi- 
tions, in case work, 628 

House, as project in practical arts, 419 

House-planning, typical unit organiza- 
tion, 185 


Inhibition: in appreciation, 
language, 442 

Initial diffuse movements, 157; viola- 
tion of, 158; in practical arts, 424; 
in language learning, 444 

Integrity of the school, 543 

Interest: in the learning situation, 103; 
identifying and guiding, 591, teach- 
ers’ reports, 593 


Judd, Charles H., 509 


322; in 


Kindergarten, relation to normal ap- 
perceptive mass, 165 


Lange, Dena, 141 
Language-arts type: defined, 92, 436; 
objective in, 436; contrasted with 
related learnings, 438, 445; successive 
adaptations, 440, associated skills, 
440; inhibition, 442; sometimes in- 
volved in learning in other types, 446; 
operative technique, 448 
Latin: operative technique as typical of 
language arts, 454; beginners on 
seventeenth day, 457; writing (free) 
done on twenty-fourth day, 463; 
technique in literature, 475 
Learning cycle, 154 
Learning products: nature, 19, 22; per- 
manency, 23; test of, 23, 29; types, 25; 
identification of, 159 
Learning situation, 103 
Lesson-learning: defined, 37; not pro- 
portional to learning, 41; illustrated, 
42, 433 get-by attitude, 44; evidence 
to product, 50053 three types 
of learning found, 58 


650 


Literature: in appreciation type, 319; 
operative technique, 335, 358; gen- 
eral, 353; courses in, 353, 355; prob- 
lem case in, 368; in foreign language, 
379, 445, 475 

Lyman and Hill, 353 


McCoy, Martha Jane, 368 

Machine, the, intelligent attitude to- 
ward, 402 

Machine tools, in practical arts, 422 

Marks and grades: fallacies connected 

with, 39, 603; accurate use, 606, 645 

Mastery, defined, 35 

Mastery formula, defined, 79 

Mathematics: unit in, 199; use in gen- 
eral education, 203; assimilative 
material in, 203; unit organizations 
in I and II, 213; as study tool, 279; 
relation to other subjects, 280 

Maturing process, 16; in composition, 
481; and adjustment, 567 

Mental ability, 557 

Method, place of, in science type, 220 

Moral behavior, in appreciation type, 
320 

Morale, in the school, 550 

Morgan, Catherine, 143 

Motivation: in the learning situation, 
103; sustaining, 105; spurious, 105 


Neuro-muscular adaptations, 505; op- 
erative technique, 506 

Non-teachable material, 96 

Normality and subnormality, 558 

Number concepts, 209, 532 

Number facts, 532; relation to primary 
concepts, 532; technique, 535; testing, 
530, 538 

Obedience, in right attitude toward con- 
duct, 385 


Operative technique, 153; defined, 153; 
relation to control and administra- 
tion, 153; fundamentals in, 154 

Organization in science type: described, 
220; operative technique, 302; rela- 
tion to English composition, 305 

Organizing the school, in administrative 
technique, 640 


Passing grade: fallacy of, 38; as objec- 
tive, 40 


660 


Performance: term in administrative 
vocabulary, 568; distinct from adjust- 
ment, 568 

Personnel teacher, 548; report, 6o1 

Perverse literature, influence of, 348 


Perversions: get-by, 44; performance, 
46; lesson-learning, 59; problem case 
in science type, 289 


Phase, in measuring group attention, 
124 
Phonetics, in language learning, 466 


Physical science: unit in, 171; test of 
unit, 182; unitary organization, 182; 
typical organizations, 183 


Physics: typical unit organization, 184 

Plumbing and steam-fitting, in practical 
arts, 420 

Politics, typical unit organization, 186 

Practical-arts type: defined, go; in gen- 
eral education, 401; learning unit in, 
404; contrast with science type, 407; 
contrast with manual training, 408; 
426; contrast with vocational courses, 
409; operative technique, 424 

Presentation in science type: described, 
226; operative technique, 243; typical 
presentations, 243, 245; no questions, 
249; testing, 251; presentation test, 
252; presentation use of, 254; re- 
presentation, 254; in practical arts, 
428; in spelling, 517 

Pre-test: in mastery formula, 79; in 
science type, 225; in literature, 354, 
360; in practical arts, 427; in spelling, 
RUT 

Primary adaptations, 8-11; critical 
importance in arithmetic, 209, 532 

Primary school: limits, 7; kindergarten- 
primary, 106 

Problem case: defined, 85; remedial, 85; 
corrective, 85, 612; in science type, 
285; in literature, 368; in conduct, 
395; in foreign language, 471; in 
spelling, 530; systematic case work, 
608; justification, 608 

Problem-solving, 206 

Profiling, in sustained application, 135 

Project: in practical arts, 417; con- 
trasted with exercise, 417; contrasted 
with unit, 418; administration of, 434 

Promises, fidelity to, in attitude toward 
conduct, 384 


Pronunciation, in language learning, 466 


THE PRACTICE OF TEACHING 


sdd ae-awip'n, as a theory of education, 

18; teaching by, 161 

Pupil accounting, 644; educational 
register, 644; descriptive marks, 645; 
the master-card, 645; the case folder, 
647; pupil study, 647 

Pupil administration, 552 

Pupil progress: appraisal of, 66-76; 
performance appraisal, 68; by rank, 
72; valid appraisal, 75; administrative 
technique, 574 

Pupil study, organization for, 648 

Pure-practice type: defined, 93; sub- 
types, 93, 504, 505; operative tech- 
nique, 503, 506; application to prod- 
ucts of other types, 504; adaptation, 
505; inhibition, 509 


Reading: in supervised study, 271; in- 
tensive, 271; extensive, 274; relation 
of, to study capacity, 277; in problem 
cases, science type, 286; in literature 
courses, 362; operative technique 
typical of language arts, 451 

Reading-room: in apperceptive guid- 
ance, 166; in literature, 336; selection 
of books, 339; conduct of, 340; sales- 
manship, 340 

Recitations in science type: described, 
230; operative technique, 306 

Religion: in relation to conduct, 375 


Remedial case: defined, 85; register, 
615; organization scheme for, 639 


Reteaching, in mastery formula, 81 


School history, in remedial case work, 
627 

Science, elementary, typical unit organi- 
zation, 183, 184 

Science type: defined, 89: size of class 
IN, 313 

Secondary school: limits, 5, 12, 15; 
purposes, 14; definition, 5 final pro- 
ducts, 33 

Sectioning classes, based on adjustment, 
565 

Self-dependence: objective of secondary 
education, 33; administrative tech- 
nique, 595; teachers’ reports, 597 

Sex, beauty in relationship, in attitude 
toward conduct, 381 

Skill, defined, 20 

Skip-section, in administering language 
courses, 581 


INDEX 


Slow learner, identification, 87 

Social history, in remedial case work, 
632 

Social science: unit in, 174; test of unit, 
182; unitary organization, 182 

Spelling, 510; relation to pupil’s dis- 
course, 510, 512, 513; word lists, 511; 
operative technique, 514; pre-test, 
514; presentation, 517; testing, 520, 
524; functional requirements, 524; 
pupil study and corrective teaching, 
524, 525, 529; problem-case remedial, 
53° 

Steam engine, in practical arts, 421 

Study: ability to, 15; fundamental in 
operative technique, 161 

Student-adviser system, in attitude to- 
ward conduct, 393 


Superior student: 


application of mas- 
tery formula in 


e case of, 86, 87; 
supplementary project, 88, 5387; ad- 
ministrative technique, 581, 587; ex- 
panded program, 586; additional 
courses, 588; college courses, 588 

Supervised study: in science type, 270; 
the study tools, in reading, 271, 277; 
the study tools, in handwriting, 278; 
the study tools, in math.-concepts, 
279; the study tools, in drawing, 281; 
guide sheets, 283; materials, 283; lab- 
oratory exercises, 284; concentration, 
285; problem case, 285; in practical 
arts, 429 

Supervision of teaching, 545 


Supplementary project, use with su- 
perior pupil, 88 
Symptoms, in remedial case work, 618 


Teachers, influence of, in attitude to- 
ward conduct, 390 

Teaching cycle in science type, 220, 223; 
five steps described, 225 

Teaching objectives: as adaptations, 
22; identification of, 159 

Testing: test of a real learning product, 
29; in mastery formula, 738; presenta- 
tion test in science type, 251; as- 


661 


similation test in science type, 292, 
296, 297; performance testing in 
science type, 294; in free reading, 338, 
341, 343; reading cards as test mate- 
rial, 344, 354, 362; in attitude toward 
conduct, 398; in practical arts, 433; 
in language arts, 458; in composition, 
484; in usage, 497; in spelling, 520, 
524; in number facts, 536, 538; in 
remedial case work, 619 


Textiles, typical unit organization, 185 

Think, learning to, 31 

Three Problem Children, cited, 612 

Training of teachers, 547 

Translation, defined, 438 

Transverbalizing, described, 438 

Treatment, in remedial case work, 637 

Turbine, in practical arts, 421 

Types of testing: why different types, 
89; five types defined, 89; critical 
Importance, 95 


Unitary organization: in physical and 
social science, 182; typical organiza- 
tions, 183, 186, 207, 211, 213 

Units: learning, 36; contrast with per- 
formance, 37; place of, in systematic 

g, 79; in physical and social 
science, 171; test of, 182; in history, 
189; in mathematics and grammar, 
199; in practical arts, 416; unit organ- 
ization in administrative technique, 
574 

University, beginning of, 7, 13 

Usage teaching: content, 483; operative 
technique, 487; testing, 497 


Vocalization: in language-learning, 467; 
in composition, 493 

Volitional development: in sustained 
application, 104; relation of, to 
obedience, 114 

Voluntary project: in science type, 296; 
in literature, 366 


Woodworking, in practical arts, 419 
Word lists, selection of, in spelling, 511 


PRDITED Ii THE U.S.A. 


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